


Fire Watch

by Luthor



Category: Firewatch (Video Game), Wentworth (TV)
Genre: AU, Crossover, F/F, Panic Attacks, Slurs, please suspend belief for the duration
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-06-21
Packaged: 2020-03-08 03:25:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18886201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthor/pseuds/Luthor
Summary: Franky Doyle picks up a fire watch job to satisfy her community service.Bridget Westfall is stationed in the lookout tower closest to Franky's, barely visible across a great ravine.The two only ever communicate via their walkie-talkies, but for one stifling summer they’re all the other has for company.





	1. Pole Star

**Author's Note:**

> This is, perhaps, the strangest crossover I'll ever write. 
> 
> The setting is Fantasy!Australia, in Fantasy!Earth, because I cannot be fucked to do the amount of research that it would take to make this completely believable. To all Australians and Fire-Watch-ers, please look away or be prepared for heinous inaccuracies. 
> 
> As always, feedback means the world. If you can drop me a line, leave some kudos, lemme know what you like, what you want to see more of, what you had for dinner... it'd mean the world. :)

Franky reaches her watchtower while the October sun sets against the back of her neck.

It’s barely 9pm and still hot out, that she’s sweating through her tank top and flannel shirt by the time she reaches the top of the winding staircase up to her latest work post, and out of breath. Fuck, but she might have just gotten herself way in over her head, she thinks, as she leans against the white wooden frame that encompasses the outer porch of the watchtower. Up this high, she can see above the canopy of trees, the stretching bushland with its rivers and its creaks— the distant mountains and the shadows that they cast when the sun slips behind them.

Lush yellow-green countryside basks in a lazy orange sun, stretching in every direction, and Franky stands alone above it all.

Her stomach sinks.

From here, Franky can barely make out the path that she’d hiked through to get where she is, lost to distance and obscured by trees and the occasional cluster of rock. Her body aches from the journey, but it’s nothing that she can’t get used to, and so Franky tries to settle the bubble of nerves in her stomach that wonders if she’s as cut out for this job as she’d made herself up to be, seated opposite her Parole Officer and exuding confidence as well as she could.

She wonders, not for the first time, if she couldn’t have taken her sentence of community service and stuck with the litter pickers or garbage collectors that she’d passed every day on her way to work, before this whole shit show ruined any degree of normality for her. Sure, the neon orange jump suit might not have done her figure any favours, and the work would have been monotonous at best (gruelling, beneath that hot summer sun, at worst), but she’d have gotten through it with ease.

Instead, Franky had leapt at the opportunity for a challenge.

Or, at least, a change of pace.

Sit in a watchtower, lookout for signs of a bush fire, alert someone if she saw anything suspicious.

How difficult could it be?

Staring out over the perch, now, she can’t help but scoff at her own naivety.

“You’ve really landed yourself in the shitter now, Doyle,” she whispers to herself, squinting into the distance.

Pushing away from the wooden railing, she digs out the set of keys that she’d been issued with back at the main national park’s welcome centre, and tries the door. She has to wiggle the key in the lock before it’ll give, but it otherwise swings open with ease, revealing the makings for a basic, if rustic, looking bedsit. Three-hundred-and-sixty degree windows fill every wall but the space where the door has been fitted, providing a goldfish-like view out into the world.

As far as roofs above her head go, it’s certainly not the worst Franky has ever had.

Easing out of her rucksack, Franky steps over the threshold and lets it land with a dull thud.

She flicks on a light switch to illuminate a small kitchen-come-dining area, a single bed, and the resources that she’ll need to complete her work here. A single cupboard holds all the cooking equipment and utensils that she’s been given for her stay, and the fridge-freezer looks recently stocked, that she doesn’t worry about what she’s supposed to be eating while she’s out here. A bookshelf no taller than her hip carries a few frayed looking novels, as well as a bunch of basic looking survival and nature guides. Franky thumbs through one of them without interest as she crosses her new living space, but tosses the book aside as she reaches a desk.

The drawers don’t bring up any surprises – stationery, a flare gun, binoculars, a compass.

She sets a small but well supplied first aid kit to one side, and then pulls out the desk chair, dropping herself into it.

Feet spread apart and slumping, Franky rests her elbows on the armrests and tips her head right back, closing her eyes. She’s almost dozing off, too, when a sharp crackle from the desk startles her awake again.

Straightening, Franky rubs a hand over her face and skims the desk for whatever had caused the noise. She’s still blinking her vision into focus when the walkie talkie on the far left hand side of the desk crackles again, this time in a distinct ring for attention. Frowning, Franky pulls it from the little charging dock that it’s been set into and switches it on.

Forgetting whatever protocol she’d picked up in the brief training that she’d been given prior to her arrival, she squeezes the _speak_ button and brings the walkie to her mouth.

“What?”

She figures it’s the main welcome lodge checking up on her, making sure that she’d found her station alright, or that she hasn’t already done a runner. When the walkie next crackles to life, however, it’s with the sound of surprised, if muffled, laughter and a voice that scratches all the way down Franky’s spine.

“I thought I saw the light come on. You must be Francesca Doyle. I’m Bridget Westfall, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you. I’ll be helping you to learn the ropes, so to speak, or just to keep you sane. This job’s not for the faint of heart, if you can believe it.”  

Franky stares at the walkie talkie, frowning.

“You’re not my boss?”

“More like your neighbour,” Bridget says, and Franky can hear the smile in her voice. “Look North. That watchtower in the distance is mine. We’re close enough to reach the same frequency on these walkies, so feel free to keep in touch as and when you need.”

Franky feels an itch of annoyance in her gut. “They didn’t tell me I’m being shadowed.”

“I wouldn’t think of it like that. It’s not my job to keep an eye on you, it’s more like— professional courtesy?” She says it with an amused trill that has Franky setting her jaw. “I’ve worked this job for a couple of summers, now, is all I mean to say. I’ve seen people come and go. It’s the isolation that gets to you; human beings weren’t built to spend so much time in solitary confinement, it’s not good for us. So, if you ever want to chat—”

“Yeah, I kinda came here for the peace and quiet, actually, so don’t worry about it,” Franky lies, and there’s a telling silence from the walkie.

It lasts all of five seconds.

“Noted.” And, she still sounds so damn amused, Franky notes. “But the offer still stands, Francesca.”

“ _Franky_ ,” she barks, wetting her lips. “And, thanks, but I don’t need it.”  

“Well, if you change your mind… Goodnight, _Franky_.”

Ignoring the walkie, Franky sets it back onto its charging dock with a little more force than is really necessary, and stands. She’s about to leave the desk completely but indecision roots her in place. With a sigh, she digs around in the top drawer again for the compass, and holds it up to the light until she finds North. Dead ahead. Lifting her head, Franky squints through the windowpane directly in front of her, but it isn’t until she tries the binoculars that she spots the watchtower in the distance.

A glint of light makes it near-impossible to miss, like a beacon meant to draw her eye, a pole star.

A long ravine sits about halfway between them, separating her watchtower from Bridget’s and hinting at no easy direct route from point A to B without an arduous trek.

Still, Franky’s lips twist with annoyance.

She knew this community service offer had been too good to be true.

Get out of the city for a while, top up her tan, that’s what she’d thought. Of course, she’d taken the offer seriously – this was just the break from home that she needed, and she intended to do the job justice. She thought she’d hit a lucky break in being considered for the position, instead of typical community service work with a Parole Officer breathing down her neck, and yet…

A twist of uncertainty warns her not to judge this Bridget Westfall too soon, but Franky is stubborn in the face of her own frustration.

Of _course,_ they’d have someone checking up on her.

She supposes she shouldn’t be so surprised. There’s a reason she’s here, after all.

With a sigh, she leaves the binoculars and compass at the desk, and grabs her rucksack.

She’d passed a little outhouse and shower downstairs that she supposes she’s going to have to become intimately acquainted with sooner or later, and there’s no time like the present.

 

 

 

When Franky wakes, it’s with a stiff neck and a shock of unfamiliarity.

It’s not the scratchy blanket or the woodsy smell that blindsides her, but the way that the entire watchtower lights up like a goddamn Christmas tree as soon as the sun begins to rise. Fuck, but she misses her blackout blinds all of a sudden.

Groaning, she contemplates shoving her head beneath her pillow for another hour or two, but the idea leaves her wanting.

She’s awake, now, she might as well do something.

So, Franky rises, stretches, scratches her back and rolls out the kink in her neck. She grabs the kettle from the stove and slips on the pair of sliders that she’d brought with her before exiting the watchtower. The trip back down to the ground is much quicker than the climb up, and once down there Franky uses the outhouse and gathers water. If nothing else, she’ll be in better shape by the time she returns home, that’s for goddamn sure.

Back in the watchtower, and fully awake, Franky brews herself a cup of coffee and takes it out onto the surrounding porch with her.

This early, she can appreciate the summer sun without being scorched by it. She’s high enough up to feel a breeze against her bare arms and legs, where the shorts and t-shirt do very little to keep it at bay, but it’s a pleasant kind of cool. Franky closes her eyes and feels it against her face. She takes a sip of coffee and sighs a hot breath back out into the air again.

She doesn’t remember ever being anywhere so _quiet_.

As if a higher power had tuned into her thoughts – God, fate, _karma_ – a familiar crackle sounds from inside.

Franky almost considers ignoring it, but even she can’t justify fucking up on the first day of work. She returns to the watchtower with a roll of her eyes, and sets her mug on the desk before grabbing the walkie talkie from the dock.

“Checking up on me, already, or did ya just wanna know how I slept?”  

“Franky.” Bridget’s voice sounds warm and amused, even this early in the morning. “Guilty as charged. Do you always wake this early, or are you just missing your curtains?”

“What do you think?”

“I think _someone_ skipped their morning coffee.”

“You interrupted it, actually.”

“Well, I am sorry about that.”

“Sure, you are,” Franky scoffs to herself, not relaying her derision over the walkie. She pulls the desk chair out and takes a seat, again, resting her legs on top the desk. Comfortable, she reaches for her coffee mug and takes another mouthful. It burns pleasantly down the back of her throat. Into the walkie, she says, “So, what are you doing up so early?”

“Checking up on you, of course,” Bridget says, and Franky recognises the teasing tone, the _goading_ , even as she sets her jaw. “Actually, I’ve been awake for a while. It’s difficult not to rise with the sun, out here, but by now it’s just become habit.”

Franky chews at her bottom lip. “I almost just put my pillow over my face and went back to sleep.”

Bridget’s laughter scratches out of the walkie in her hand, and Franky shivers.

“Tried it,” she says, and the following groan suggests a lack of success. “Actually, you should drop by the supply box nearest to you, if you haven’t already. The last lookout might have left some things behind that you could find useful. Do you have your map?”

Franky glances around for it, but makes no effort to do a proper search. “Yeah.”

“Good. The rangers back at the welcome lodge should have marked off where your closest supply drop is. That’s where any drop-offs you request will be left. When it comes to food, they like you to pick it up immediately.”

“Don’t feed the wildlife, I get it.”

Bridget hums across the walkie, amused. “The code to get in is 4-3-2-1. It’s the same for every other box, too.”

Franky snorts. “Secure.”

“Yep.”

“Well, if that’ll be all…” She holds the walkie up expectantly, waiting for Bridget to get her last word in.

No doubt, she will.

Right on cue, the walkie crackles back to life, and Franky can’t help but smirk to herself.

“One last thing,” Bridget begins. “I’m really not here to oversee you. I’m in no higher position than you are, I’ve just had previous experience on the job, and I know what it can be like. I’m sorry if I overstepped last night, but I was just offering to help.”

Franky lets the line sit quiet for a moment while she considers that.

If they were face to face, maybe she’d be able to tell for certain if Bridget were lying or not. As it is…

Franky releases all her breath in a sigh.

“It’s whatever, yeah? I’m used to being on my own. A break like this is just what I need to clear my head.”

The line holds quiet for a moment longer, and Franky wonders how believable she’d sounded.

“Alright, Franky,” Bridget finally returns. “But I’m here if you need me.”

Franky rolls her eyes at the walkie talkie and tosses it to the bed, where it lands in the unmade sheets. Putting her feet back on the floor, she downs her coffee until the mug is near-empty, and stands.

“Yeah, I don’t fuckin’ think so, mate,” she mutters to herself, drawing her t-shirt up and over her head.

 

 

 

Franky finds the supply crate with ease.

She’s never really had to use a map and compass like this before, but she’s a quick study, and she’s always had a decent sense of direction. Call it a nifty little superpower picked up from having a childhood with no decent adult available to run her from place to place. She thumbs in the code and the padlock opens as expected.

Inside, the supply box holds a spare torch, some loose batteries, and a notebook, amongst other items. Franky picks up the notebook and thumbs through it, but it’s barely filled and there’s nothing of any particular interest. Seems the last person who had her watchtower was some kind of artist, as different flowers and trees fill the first handful of pages. After that, there’s some indistinct chicken-scratch notes, and the remainder is empty.

After a second thought, Franky shoves it into the little travel-sized backpack that she’d brought with her, along with the torch and batteries.

If nothing else, she supposes she could always pick up journaling.

On the lid of the supply box a vague map of the land has been stapled. There are faded notes and marks over certain areas, where past fire watchers or rangers have marked off local points of interest, and areas to be wary of. Franky spends the next few minutes copying the notations onto the map that she’d brought with her.

Other than that, there’s little of interest in the supply box, and so Franky locks it with the padlock again, messing up the combination.

She’ll have to trek back out here when whoever’s in charge of making sure she doesn’t starve to death does a proper food drop, but for now she leaves it well alone.

Her job description states that she need be in the watchtower at all times, give or take, on high alert for any bush fires, except for when she’s actually checking out a potential threat or suspicious activity. Still, Franky itches to explore a little. It’s still early enough that there’ll be plenty of light for the next few hours, and if she sticks to open spaces, she’s likely to see any signs of smoke almost as well as if she were back in the tower.

With this in mind, she makes a long arc around the watchtower, sticking to the sparser bushland terrain.

She doesn’t meet a single other person on her walk, although that’s about as peaceful as it is unnerving, if she lets herself think too hard on it.

She completes her arc before the sun begins to set, heading for the watchtower that’s still easily within sight. There’s sweat down her back and a strain in her legs by the time she reaches the bottom of the staircase winding up, that she just stands there a moment, shielding her eyes from the sun and wincing at the inevitable exertion.

No other way around it, she decides, and begins the climb.

She’s almost halfway up when she hears something out of place in the near-silence of her own panting.

Squinting, Franky stands still to catch her breath, and listens.

The indistinct noise becomes a voice— a voice, she suddenly realises, that’s shouting her name.

“ _Shit_.”

Franky’s eyes go wide, and without thought to her aching muscles, she pushes into what she can manage of a run. She reaches the top of the watchtower within seconds, and bursts through the door— only to find it completely empty.

“What…”

“ _….Franky!....... Franky, hello, are you there?!....._ ”

The walkie!

“Fuck,” Franky hisses as she dives onto the bed, pushing the sheets aside until she finds the little device lost in amongst them. She almost drops it in her haste to bring it up to her mouth, and is sure she sounds panicked and out of breath when she answers. “I’m here— where’s the fuckin’ fire?”

She pushes herself up onto her knees, better to see out of the windows surrounding the watchtower, and twists in every direction, frantic.

She is not expecting the scoff of outraged laughter to come over the line, and it surprises her enough that she sits down on the bed, frowning.

“You’re fucking _kidding_ ,” Bridget sighs, and Franky can hear the relief in her voice, even if she doesn’t understand it.

“Do you see something?” she presses.

“No, Franky.” Clipped. Angry. Oh? “I just thought you might have died on the fucking job already. Did you seriously leave your watchtower without your walkie?”

Ah.

“No,” Franky lies. “I was just outside when I heard you going boonta and ran in here.”

“You’re lying.”

“I am not—”

“Do you realise how stupid that was?” Franky’s jaw drops with offence. “ _Anything_ could have happened to you, and _nobody_ would have known. I was _this close_ to calling for a ranger. Don’t you ever do that again, Franky. That walkie talkie goes wherever you go, no excuses.”

“Jesus,” Franky huffs, her cheeks turning pink. The sting of mortification is sharper than a knife’s tip, but Franky’s always been good at redirecting unwanted emotions into one that she is far more acquainted with. “Are you _fucking_ kidding me? You’re not my mother – you’re not my fucking boss, either, so where the fuck you get off on telling me what to do—”

“Really, Franky?”

“Yeah, _really_. If you weren’t such a nosy cow, I wouldn’t have left the walkie behind in the first place. Just back off, Bridget. I don’t need you _looking out_ for me, alright? I’m here to do my fucking job and go home at the end of it, that’s it.”

Silence holds the line – for long enough that Franky thinks Bridget won’t respond.

Well, _good_.

“Don’t fucking bother,” she whispers to herself, clenching a fist.

 When Bridget reappears over the line, her voice is octaves calmer, but it’s a forced kind of control that makes her sound hard. Hurt. Pissed off.

The sound of it makes Franky grind her teeth.

“Alright, Franky. I’m done. You know what frequency I’m on if you need me.”

Like that, the line goes silent.

Franky glares at the device in her hand until the urge to smash something almost overtakes her. She draws her arm back as though to launch the walkie talkie through a window, but something stops her. _She_ stops herself. Breathe in, breathe out. Count to five. Count to ten. Count to—

Changing direction, she pummels the walkie talkie into the bed, instead, where it bounces straight off the mattress and clatters to the floor.

Noisy, almost satisfying, but not broken.

 

 

 

Franky turns her light off early, that night, but struggles to fall asleep.

The mattress beneath her is firm in places and far too soft in others, and she’s sure it’ll do some kind of damage to her back, eventually, but can’t yet find it in herself to care. Even with the light off, moonlight finds a way in through the surrounding windows and makes the inside of the little watchtower visible. Franky curls up onto one side, an arm beneath her pillow, and blinks into the darkness.

Her gaze settles onto an indistinct shape beneath the dining table, and it takes her a moment of scrutiny to realise that it’s the walkie talkie.

She hadn’t gone looking for it after her little outburst, earlier, and it’s only with vague relief that she’s happy to have found it without effort.

Turning onto her back, Franky closes her eyes and wills herself to sleep, even as she already knows that she won’t. She feels restless. She feels cooped up. She feels— pretty fucking stupid, if she’s being honest with herself. She wonders, not for the first time, how easy her life would be if she was any more of a bastard than she already is.

Rolling her eyes at herself, Franky sighs and gets out of bed.

She crouches on all fours to reach the walkie talkie, and brings it back to the nest of blankets with her.

She considers that it is, perhaps, far too late to be attempting any kind of communication.

Before she can talk herself out of it, she pushes her thumb into the _speak_ button.

“Uh, hey. You still awake?”

No answer. Franky holds her breath.

“C’mon,” she pleads. “I know you’re there. I’m sorry for being a dickhead, earlier. I was… embarrassed. I forgot all about the walkie. I only meant to go to the supply box, like you said, but then I wanted to stay out a little longer. I just felt so cooped up in here. But, I didn’t go far, and the watchtower was in sight the whole time, so—”

“Franky?”

Franky startles, almost drops the walkie. “Y-yeah?”

“I _was_ sleeping, actually.”

“Ah, shit.”

“Mm…”

“Sorry?”

A yawn. “It’s fine.”

“And, uh,” Franky clears her throat. “Sorry. Again. For, you know.”

“Being a dickhead?”

“Right.” Franky rolls her eyes, but she’s smiling. She doesn’t really know why. “I won’t leave without the walkie again. Scout’s honour.”

Bridget scoffs. “You were never a scout.”

“How the fuck do you know? I could have been.”

“But, you weren’t.”

“Nuh. Guess I wasn’t.”

“You scared me, today.” The admission is said quietly, sleep-dazed and soft. Franky wonders if Bridget would admit to as much, if she hadn’t just roused her from sleep. “It’s so easy for something to go wrong out here. If anything would have happened and you couldn’t get a signal out, you’d have been fucked. It could have been days before anybody found you. Could have been _longer_.”

“Yeah,” Franky agrees, blowing out a sigh. “But, I could always just start a fire. A real big one. That’d get everybody’s attention.”

Bridget laughs, unamused. “Don’t you dare.”

“No promises…”

Bridget groans over the walkie, and Franky laughs to herself. She bites at a blunt thumbnail and thinks she should probably end this conversation, now, while they’re still on amicable terms. She should let Bridget go back to sleep, and she should try and get some herself, too, while her chest isn’t feeling so heavy.

Instead—

“So, what made you come out here, Gidget?” she asks, and smiles at the exasperated noise that sighs out of her walkie talkie’s tinny speaker.

“It’s Bridget.”

“I prefer _Gidget_.”

“I’d prefer to have this conversation when the sun is up. Preferably, after a full night’s sleep?”

“Oh, c’mon, I’m curious now. If you don’t answer, I’ll be up all night wondering… unable to sleep.”

“And, that’s my concern, why?” Bridget asks, voice teasing.

“You said you wanted to help me, didn’t ya?”

A scoff. Franky’s smile broadens until she licks it from her lips.

“You said you’ve worked here before,” Franky presses. “How often?”

“The last two summers.”

“What made you take the job?”

A brief pause, and Franky wonders how honest Bridget will allow herself to be when she answers her.

“I wanted a change of pace. Something out of the city, away from my work.”

“What made you come back?”

“I thought it was _peaceful_.”

“Was that a dig?” Franky asks, grinning. “’Cause that _sounded_ like a bit of a dig, Gidget.”

Bridget groans again. “Do you have any idea what time it is? It’s late. I’m tired. I want to go to sleep.”

“Oh, so when the shoe is on the other foot, eh…?”

A beat.

“Is that what this is?” Bridget asks. “Payback for being a nosy cow earlier?”

“Maybe.” Franky tongues at the corner of her mouth. “Nuh, not really. I’m just curious. What kinda work do you do?”

“What?”

“Your job. You said you wanted to get away from your work in the city— doing what?”

Franky imagines Bridget rolling her eyes, tucked up in bed in her own watchtower, perhaps even smiling.

She wonders, briefly, if Bridget’s workspace is as much of a mess as her own is.

Perhaps she’ll do something about that, tomorrow…

“I’m a psychologist.”

“Oh, _Christ_.” That husky, nails-against-her-back laughter sounds again, and Franky bites her lip. “That explains a lot.”

“Hm.”

“So, I’m stuck out here with a shrink.”

“And, who am I stuck out here with, Franky?”

Franky’s smile dissolves on her lips.

For a brief second, she considers lying. Omitting the truth. She doubts she’ll ever even see Bridget face to face, never mind in the real world, where they could bump into each other amongst regular society. And, what does it matter, anyway? Franky Doyle is who she is, and she’s not ashamed of herself. She’s too goddamn stubborn for that.

She presses her thumb down on the _speak_ button, and then just holds it there for a moment.

Hesitates.

Will Bridget think any less of her?

(Does she _care_?)

“I’m… actually only here on community service.”

Bridget’s “ _oh?_ ” is convincingly surprised.

“Yep.”

“How long have you got?”

“The month.”

“Ouch.”

Franky hums a laugh. “Not gonna ask what I did to deserve it?”

“Do you want to tell me?”

Franky… considers that. _No_ , she thinks. She wants to end the conversation and go to bed. Sighing, she already knows that she won’t. She’d always been one of those kids who picked her scabs off before they were fully healed, unable to leave well enough alone. As an adult, it seems, she’s no different.

“Assault.”

Her walkie remains silent.

Just as Franky begins to sweat, it crackles back into life again.

“Well, it couldn’t have been too bad, if they sent you here.”

Franky’s face pales at the memory.

“Yeah,” she agrees, swallows tightly. “Could have definitely been worse.”

What she _means_ , of course, is that she’d tried to do worse, in the moment.

Had brought Mike Pennisi to the floor and was about to do something royally fucking heinous, when she’d been restrained.

The intent, in that split second decision, the sheer _strength_ of her own anger had terrified her.

By the time she’d realised how close she’d come to throwing boiling oil into a man’s face, she’d vomited until she couldn’t breathe, and accepted her assault charge like it was a slap on the wrist. It really could have been much, much worse.

“Franky,” Bridget says, reminding Franky that she’s there. “Please don’t take offence, but I’m going to fall asleep.”

And, just like that, Franky’s smile returns.

“Bored you to exhaustion, have I?”

“Just about…”

“Cheeky.”

“ _Goodnight_ , Franky,” Bridget intones.

Franky can hear the smile in her voice, and can’t help but match it.

“Yeah, yeah, go the fuck to sleep already.” She licks her bottom lip, captures it between her teeth, and smirks. “ _Gidget_.”


	2. as doves do, breathing

Franky collapses to the floor in exhaustion.

Her hairline is damp with sweat, and already there’s a dull ache in her arms that warns she’ll be sore, come tomorrow morning. What she wouldn’t give for a steaming bathroom and a hot bubble bath right about now, she muses. Instead, she starfishes her body against the wooden watchtower flooring and prays that the coolness of it against her overheated muscles will satisfy just a fraction of the relief that she’s seeking.

While her workout had fatigued her physically, she’s loathed to discover that it’s proven ineffective against her restless mind.

She feels, to put it mildly, like she’s going stir-fucking-crazy.

Closing her eyes, Franky focuses on slowing her erratic panting down to elongated, steady breathing, while sweat pools and then dries in the dips of her clavicle. She’s been on fire watch duty for exactly thirteen days, now, and the monotony is beginning to gnaw at her.

Thirteen days stuck inside the same four walls with only the occasional runs to the nearest supply cache for a change of setting, thirteen days and she’s not yet seen even a tickle of smoke against the blue-grey horizon.

She hadn’t taken the job thinking that she’d be a glorified firefighter for the summer (although, the mental image _had_ satisfied her ego), but still. She craves action. Disruption. A break to the inertia that she feels closing in around her like quick-drying cement; if she doesn’t keep moving, if she lets herself rest for just long enough, it’ll set hard around her and that will be that.

The mental image has her eyes opening, searching overhead for the wall of glass and the blue-blue sky just outside of it. A ray of sunlight stretches across her navel, right where her t-shirt has ridden up from her shorts, exposing a strip of skin.

Franky rolls out of its grasp, and stands.

She downs a flask of water until she’s out of breath, and splashes a little more down the back of her t-shirt, making herself shiver.

She’s in the process of re-tying her ponytail when a crackle from her walkie talkie grants her the interruption that she’s been hoping for.

A single spark of volume, as if somebody on the same frequency as her had hit the _speak_ button for just long enough to signal attempted communication, and then released it. Tentative. _Sarcastic_. Like a finger prodding her in the ribs, checking if she’s still alive. Briefly, she wonders how she can get so much from a single crackle of dead air— she wonders how much she’s made up inside her own head.

Franky steals a glance at her watch before retrieving the walkie from its dock.

“It’s barely noon,” she says, in place of a hello. There’s no point in pleasantries when she knows exactly who’s calling for her attention. “That’s almost a full hour earlier than yesterday. Were you starting to miss me?”

Silence follows, while Franky marinates in her own smugness.

“Just checking in,” comes Bridget’s reply – exasperated and amused. “How are you?”

She’s taken to one-ringing Franky like this, after that first chancy disagreement. When Franky wants to speak, she engages her. When she doesn’t, she pushes the _speak_ button a single time in return, letting Bridget know that she’s there and everything is good, but she’s in no mood for a conversation. Bridget has respected her distance, so far, but her attempts at communication have been growing in frequency.

Franky— actually isn’t as bothered by it as she thought she’d be.

“Oh, peachy. Yeah, I’ve just been doing a little re-decorating, actually, got the place lookin’ _real_ homey.” Franky’s gaze skims the bookshelf, recently re-organised. She’s even made the bed. “I was just about to nip to the shops before you rang. Maybe grab some lunch, see where the day takes me. You want me to pick you anything up while I’m out?”

“Ha— you’re deflecting.”

“Who, me? _Naaah_.”

“I take it nothing of interest has happened since we last spoke?”

“Nothing of interest?” Franky parrots, pacing towards a window. In the distance, Bridget’s watchtower is no taller than a matchstick against the yellow sky. “Interesting shit just doesn’t _stop_ happening to me. This morning, I woke up alone in the same four walls that I’ve been living in for two weeks straight. I took a piss and halfway through the door started to open. Turns out the lock’s been broken this entire time, can you believe that? But what does it fuckin’ matter, ey? No one’s gonna walk in on me taking a shit out here.”

The silence on Bridget’s end of the walkie speaks volumes.

“I’m having the time of my life. How’s _your_ day going?”

Bridget returns with a quiet sigh.

“You’re bored.”

“No shit!” Franky scoffs. “How did you make it through an entire summer here? _Why_ did you come back?”

“It might seem bad, now, but there are things you can do to curb the boredom—”

“Yeah, I love a good wank as much as the next person, but my clit’s about to drop off from all this attention.”

“Fucking hell, Franky…”

Franky can’t squash the gratified smile at Bridget’s breathless response. She tries, anyway, clamps her teeth into her bottom lip and scratches at the back of her neck, scrunches up her nose. She recognises what she is doing even as she’s doing it, but Franky can’t help but push. Prod. Poke the bear. Or, more accurately, the tight-lipped older woman with the voice that leaves red, raised streaks down Franky’s back every time she speaks.

“I was going to recommend a _book_ ,” Bridget returns, when she’s suitably recovered.

Exasperated and amused. Franky’s favourite combination.

“Sorry to disappoint, Gidget, _I_ left all _my_ lezzo literature at home.”

A beat.

Another.

Franky wonders, not for the first time in her life, if she’s pushed too far.

Her lips wobble with a smile, regardless.

“C’mon,” she croons into the walkie, “you didn’t think I’d recognise any of the titles when you told me what you’re reading? I know you’re a dyke.” She flashes that signature Franky Doyle open-mouthed smirk out of the window, where Bridget’s watchtower shrinks in the distance. “Don’t worry about it. There’s a reason I’ve read them myself, yeah?”

When Bridget next speaks, Franky has the distinct impression of being a patient in the chair across from her psychologist’s desk.

Clipped professionalism. _Not_ Franky’s favourite combination.

“Ah. And, is there a reason why you wanted me to think of you masturbating?”

Franky shakes her head, smile waning. “Nah.”

“Does my sexuality have anything to do with it?”

Pinching her tongue between her teeth, Franky eyes the walkie talkie like she might a live grenade. Dare she pull the pin?

( _God_ , but she’s tempted.)

Franky sniffs and shakes her head.

“Get off. I’m just fuckin’ with ya.”

“Hm,” Bridget hums, and Franky reads volumes into the sound.

Her walkie talkie goes quiet, after that, and she’s left staring out of the window with only her thoughts for company.

Her gaze finds the watchtower in the distance, like it always does, and rests there. 

The sight is so familiar to her, by now, that she can find it amongst the rocks and trees without even trying. Like the grooves in a second-hand sofa, her body knows just how to fall into place so that the watchtower is in perfect view. Sometimes, she wishes the woman inside was just as attainable.

Franky hasn’t yet made her mind up about Bridget.

If she were in a room with her – just for a minute – she’s sure she’d uncover more about the woman than their short two weeks together have already revealed.

As it is…

Bridget could be anything that she says she is, and Franky has nothing but the eb-and-flow of her dulcet, husky voice to judge her by. That, and the pauses that she lets grow like canyons, sometimes, between their idle conversations. The things that she says, and the things that she _doesn’t_ say, and Franky has to wonder why it grates on her so much that she isn’t allowed more.

In the end, it’s easier to chalk it down to isolation, than waste her brain power over-thinking it.

 

 

 

Franky’s temper cools as the sun begins to touch the distant mountainside.

She has all the windows that open as wide as they’ll go, and is standing above a sizzling pot of mixed vegetables. She’d changed into a pair of leggings and a tank top – not the national park’s issued uniform for their fire watchers, but comfort clothes that she’d brought with her from home. A pair of bright yellow socks complete the outfit, the fabric pulled thin against the heel in both.

The walkie talkie crackles to life just as Franky’s adding sauce to her veg, but it’s not Bridget’s typical one-ringer.

“Franky,” her voice sounds from the desk, and there’s something different about her tone – a twist of urgency that Franky hasn’t heard before – that Franky pulls her pan off the heat and hurries to answer the call.

“Sup?”

“Have you seen this?”

Franky squints out of the nearest window. “What?”

“Look South,” Bridget instructs her, and Franky makes a swipe for her binoculars, semi-circling around.

In the distance, blue sky sinks into hazy white. The setting sun softens the ridged landscape, but all looks quiet and vaguely familiar against the horizon. Franky shrugs her shoulders, brings the walkie back to her mouth, and inhales— when she spots it. A single plume of white-grey smoke twists up from a distant patch of woodland, turning indistinct the higher that it rises above the trees, until it all but disappears against the evening haze.

“Shit.”

“You’re going to have to take a closer look,” Bridget returns from over the walkie, and Franky eyes the device, and then her dinner, with dismay. “How far out do you reckon it is?”

“Far enough,” Franky grumbles into the device in her hand. She casts a look at her watch – she maybe has another two hours of sunlight. “I can make it there before it gets dark.”

Making it back, though…

Franky groans and returns to the stove.

“Take a torch, just in case. And don’t forget your walkie, this time.”

“Don’t worry, Gidge, I’m still tender from your last telling off.”

There’s a puff of air over the walkie, just enough to make Franky grin, even as she slides a lid over her pan of vegetables and hides it inside the oven to cool down away from any bugs. She doesn’t waste time changing, but pulls on her boots, a jacket, and grabs for the backpack that she’s kept on the hook by the door, ready and prepared for something like this to happen. She double checks for the map and torch that she knows should be inside, adds her binoculars and the compass, and then swings her arms through the straps.

It feels foolish to lock the watchtower door behind her, but she does it anyway— more from habit than any real concern that another living soul might just wander out of nowhere to steal her shit.

Franky returns to red earth and speckled, yellowing grass feeling reinvigorated to be out of the air.

“Guess this serves me right, hey?” she says into the walkie once she’s left the watchtower’s looming shadow, walking in a general southerly direction. The ground is hard and dry beneath her walking boots, but the stretch in her legs feels unmistakably good. She’d needed to get out of that tower.

“You _were_ begging for some action,” Bridget agrees, and Franky laughs loud and clear for her to hear. “Keep me updated?”

“Yes, boss.”

 

The first clue that Franky’s getting close to where she needs to be is the distant hum of a noughties’ club anthem.

It’s so out of place in her current surrounding that she second guesses herself – thinks, perhaps, she’s spent so damn long by herself that she’s creating phantom sound out of the indistinct nature noises – but the closer that she gets, the more distinct the music becomes. Franky remembers the track only barely enough to recognise it, and it makes her head swim, like the memory of a bad fever.

Head-sore, sweaty, _drunk_.

The music leads her through the yellowing bushland, where the trees look thin and thirsty, and the dirt is hard and red. She emerges from speckled woodland to an empty lakeside, and the remains of an abandoned camp. Franky eyes the mess, from the discarded beer bottles and food wrappers, to the neon-orange tent and now-dwindling campfire, and shakes her head.

In the distance, drawing her attention with high-pitched giggling and squeals, Franky spots two women in the lake, visible only from the shoulders-up. The sight brings an instant, shit-eating grin to her face, and for a second Franky forgets which side of the law she’s supposed to be on, out here.

Fuck, but she hates to crash a party…

She steps one foot into the camp, about to raise an arm to try and signal the women’s attention, and then promptly stops.

At her feet, discarded in the dust, is a skimpy looking hot pink bra.

She raises the walkie to her mouth with a grin. “Well, I think I’ve found our culprits.”  

“What is that _noise_?”

Franky can barely hear Bridget over the sound of the club anthem, but she’s sure she sounds suitably perturbed.

“Gimme a second,” she says into the device in her hand, and makes for the boombox. The second she turns the music off, the raucous laughter from the lake turns to offended hollers. Franky waves an arm, grin untampered. “Ladies.”

“Ay, the fuck did you come from?” one of them shouts. “We were listening to that.”

“Had to get your attention somehow, didn’t I?” Franky shouts back. “I work with the park rangers. You know you’re not meant to be setting shit on fire out here?”

“How else are we supposed to stay warm?” the other calls, but she’s grinning, swaying her body in the water in a way that’s meant to look appealing. Her long, dark hair just barely keeps her modest as her chest rises out of the water. Franky… can appreciate the gesture.

But, _no_.

No, she has a job to do.

She’s _working_.

“Sure you’ll find a way,” she shrugs, and fucking hell, but when did she turn into the responsible adult in a situation involving two naked chicks and a fire?

“I have an idea,” the woman in the lake continues. She’s slowly making her way toward the bank, and as the water recedes it reveals more and more tan skin. Franky swallows thickly. “Why don’t you turn the music back on and join us?”

Franky presses her tongue against her upper teeth, laughing. “Nah, I just came for the fire.”

She points a finger towards it without looking.

“ _Just_ the fire? That’s a shame.”

“Aw, c’mon,” the other continues, “grab a beer with us, we don’t mind the company. Unless you’re shy? I think she’s shy, babe.”

Her friend makes an exaggerated wincing noise. “I’m sure there’s something we could do to make her feel more comfortable.”  

Fuck.

Franky’s gaze swings around to the campfire. Then, to the walkie talkie in her hand.

 _Fuck_.

She does not possess the kind of self-restraint and will-power that it will take to walk her out of here without getting into some serious shit— except, she does. It comes to her out of nowhere. All of a sudden, like a curtain falling (like the noise of a dropping guillotine), Franky’s mind snaps into startling focus. The women in the lake must realise, too, as they fall silent in their attempts to persuade her.

Sniffing, Franky moves to the fire and stomps it out before she can change her mind.

“Don’t light this again, yeah? Or I’ll just have to come back.”

“Oh, and that’d be such a shame,” one of the women croons, laughing, but holds her hands up palm-forward. “Fine, you win. No fires. But are you really sure we can’t tempt you to stay a little longer? It’s getting dark and… the tent’s big enough for three. Trust me, we know.”

Franky can feel a sweat starting against the back of her neck, but she shakes her head.

In _any_ other situation—

“Nup. Job to do.” She swings her arms awkwardly by her side. She’s never been particularly good at goodbyes. “Uh, careful in the water, yeah?”

“If there were crocs, we’d be dead already.”

“I meant, don’t drown,” Franky smirks, gesturing to the discarded beer bottles.

The women wave her off as she departs.

The entire incident leaves Franky so frazzled that she makes it ten minutes of absent-minded walking before she seems to come back to herself. The walkie talkie against her belt makes a sound, and Franky picks it up just as Bridget’s voice crackles through.

“Everything okay down there?”

“Yeah, all sorted.” Franky slows her pace, casting her sight around her. “Just a couple of kids playing in the water. I put the fire out and issued a warning.”

“Issued a warning?” Bridget croons, and Franky can tell she’s smiling. “Sounds like the power’s going to your head.”

“Piss off.”

She can’t help but smile, though, when Bridget’s raspy laughter rings out.

“Glad it went well,” she returns, finally. “Let me know when you’re back safely?”

Franky agrees and tucks the walkie away at her belt.

When she next lifts her head, she’s caught off guard by the growing dimness. The sun has all but disappeared from view behind the mountains, and all that remains of it is a distant, pink-orange glow. The sky directly opposite looms with inky darkness, and the stars are beginning to show directly above. Franky cranes her neck to see them as she’s walking, lost to thought.

She’s always been a city girl. A _townie_ , at the very least.

She likes to be in the midst of the hustle and bustle. She likes the constant noise, and the air pollution, and the convenience of a corner shop or café within every half-mile radius. She likes to surround herself with people, even if she doesn’t always like to interact with them. She likes nights where every shop window keeps their lights on, and days where the heat from car bonnets is clearly visible as it rises into the city smog.

This stark difference – this dead darkness, and startling lightness, and seemingly unending _quietness_ – is so far removed from her daily life that there’s still a part of her that’s deeply unnerved by all of it.

Franky wouldn’t say she’s easily spooked by change.

Her childhood had been filled with inconsistencies, with broken promises. She hadn’t always known when her next meal or bath would come, or if she’d see her mother that day, or even which version of her mother it would be.

She’d learned to adapt because if she hadn’t, her tender start to life would have killed her, eventually.

No, it’s not the change per-se that she’s afraid of, out here.

It’s spending so much time without outward distraction – so much time inside her own head.

The revelation takes Franky by surprise, just as she’s making her way up a crag of rocks that will shortcut her journey back to her watchtower by at least half the time. She grabs a ledge and puts all her weight on it before she tests its strength, and as the stone gives way beneath her hand, Franky feels as though time goes in slow-motion.

She falls.

Franky lands in a heap on the ground, limbs splayed, head dazed, palms burning with matching grazes. She’d clipped her chin on the way down, and when she touches the back of her hand against it, it comes back dotted with red.

“Fuck.”

Taking a moment to collect herself, Franky glares at the crag of rocks.

She’d taken a longer route down to the lake, but it would mean backtracking at least five or ten minutes before she was back on track to return to her watchtower from the same trail. Thankfully, she notes, she hadn’t fallen from any significant height. She’ll just try again. She stands, and—

“ _FUCK_.”

Franky buckles, clutching her ankle.

Sharp, stabbing pain brings a sheen of moisture to her eyes, as Franky rocks onto her backside and lifts her foot off the ground. She attempts to roll her ankle, but the result has her gasping. She casts a panicked glance around her, and her stomach sinks when she realises just how quickly the night is catching up to her. It’ll be so dark that she won’t be able to see more than a few metres in front of her within the next ten minutes or so.

She turns to the crag, but there’s no way she’s making her way up it, now.

When she looks back the way she’d come, the descending darkness makes the path look… _different_. Unrecognisable.

Her throat turns tight with panic.

Inhaling, her lungs feel full long before her body is satisfied with its oxygen intake, and she chokes. When Franky tries again, a noise like air getting stuck against an inflamed windpipe comes out of her mouth, and her throat feels like it’s sealed. She pushes herself forward with a jolt, hands landing in the dusty dirt before she’s clawing against her throat.

In her frenzy, she scrambles to remember the quick health-and-safety talk she’d had with the park rangers before she was allowed to take this job. She’s sure they’d have prepped her for what to do, in this exact situation, but she sifts through the knowledge like it’s in the bottom of a murky barrel of water, just out of her grasp.

Her head is beginning to dizzy from the lack of oxygen.

Without thinking, she fumbles for the walkie talkie in her belt, but just as she squeezes her fingers into the _speak_ button, she drops it.

She doesn’t want Bridget to hear her like this, gasping for breath.

If she can just calm herself down some—

“Franky?” sounds, bemused, from the walkie.

Franky swears quietly to herself. Her chest feels like it’s on fire.

“Your light’s not on. Are you back already?”

She’s still making that awful not-breathing noise, and her eyes are beginning to stream.

“ _Fran-ky_?” Bridget sing-songs. “I’m starting to worry.”  

Fuck it, Franky thinks, and grabs at the walkie.

“—can’t breathe,” she manages to choke out, on her hands and knees. She dips her head, which is beginning to pound, but it offers little relief.

All at once, Bridget’s tone changes.

“What’s happened?” she asks – sharp, focused, ready to help. “Are you hurt?”

“Fell,” Franky gasps into the walkie, but speaking feels like a thousand knives carving up her throat. “I— can’t _breathe_ — _chok-ing_ —”

Franky drops the walkie talkie with a cry, no longer fighting the tears. She’s in the middle of nowhere, alone, injured, and she _can’t fucking breathe_. She can hear Bridget calling her name on the walkie, but Franky ignores her. What can Bridget do? She needs _help_. She needs someone here. She needs another fucking hole in her throat.

“Take a deep breath, Franky,” Bridget tells her, and Franky wants to laugh and scream, _I’m trying!_ “You need to calm down. Okay? Relax your muscles, let yourself breathe out. Slowly. It sounds like you’re hyperventilating. You’re panicking, you need to make yourself relax.”

It’s anger, more than anything, that has her grabbing the walkie again.

“I _can’t_!” she gasps into it, throat sounding raw.

She’s still making those awful gasping noises.

“I need you to try.” Bridget only sounds more confident after Franky’s outburst. “I think you’re having a panic attack. Your throat feels like it’s closing, but it isn’t. I’m going to talk you through a breathing exercise, okay? I’m here, Franky, I’m going to help.”

Franky just clutches the walkie to her chest. At this point, she’ll try anything.

“I need you to breathe in through your nose – _slowly_. Just take it slow. When you feel the need to breathe out, exhale through your mouth. It helps if you look at something, a point of focus. Can you see the mountains, Franky?”

She can – still faintly aglow with the descending sunlight.

“Look at the mountains, keep your focus there. In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

Franky gasps through the next few breaths, and they may be shallow, but they’re working.

“Good, Franky. Now on this next inhale, I want you to count to five before you exhale again. Okay? I’ll count with you. One, two, three—”

Four.

Five.

“Now exhale just as slowly. One, two…”

Bridget counts her through another three sets, until Franky’s eyes have dried and her breaths are no longer chafing down her throat. She sits back in the dirt, exhausted, while Bridget continues to count. Her voice is like a steady metronome, and Franky’s heartrate slows to match its pace. She closes her eyes, tips her head back, and sighs.

She can breathe again.

She lifts the walkie to her mouth.

“Okay.”

Her voice sounds hoarse, even to her own ears, but Bridget stops counting. Clearing her throat, Franky dips her head forward until her forehead is against her hand, and cringes. That was embarrassing. She feels herself hot in the cheeks, and wonders what she’s supposed to say now. Thank you, probably, but the words stick in her throat. She feels, more than ever, like launching the walkie talkie away and never having to face this entire ordeal again.

Instead—

“How are you feeling?” Bridget asks.

Franky is slow to reply.

“Fine.”

She tests her ankle, and the pain is only a brief twinge compared to when she first fell. She must only have twisted it.

“You said you fell. Are you hurt?”

“Nuh. My ankle, but I can walk on it.”

“Are you sure?”

Franky rolls it again, and this time it barely even twinges.

“Yeah, I’m good. Sorry.”

Bridget makes a noise like a sigh, like all the tension is leaving her body.

“You don’t need to apologise, Franky, but you did almost scare me half to death.”

Franky blows out a tired laugh, at that, but it’s half-hearted at best. She’s no energy left for amusement, even the relieved kind. She glances around herself, again. She could probably make the crag, now, if she tried.

“How far are you from the watchtower?” Bridget asks, disrupting her thoughts.

“Depends which route I take.”

“The _safest_ ,” Bridget instructs, her tone dry, and Franky smirks despite herself.

“Then, about thirty minutes.”

She’ll need to backtrack a bit, but she doesn’t tell Bridget that. Her ego’s already bruised.

“Alright, then I’ll wait up with you, and you’re going to tell me when you’re back. Not just a one-ringer, okay? I want to know you’re safe.”

At any other time, Franky would have a smart comment for that.

An, _aw, didn’t know you cared!_

As it is, her body feels fried. Her mind, more so.

“I’ll let you know,” she says, and pushes herself to her feet.

 

 

Franky’s body sinks with relief when she finally makes it back to the watchtower.

She sits on the bed and slouches with her elbows on her knees, head dipped low above them.

She’s sure that Bridget has already noticed her light come on. It’s pitch black outside, already, and Franky’s watchtower will be the only source of light for miles around. She probably doesn’t even need to ring her to let her know that she’s back, like she’d said she would, but Franky’s stomach twists. She doesn’t know whether the stomach-ache is more from mortification or hunger, but she can’t bring herself to re-heat the meal she’d been preparing before she’d left.

Had it only been hours before?

So, she sits a while, still wearing her boots and jacket.

She eyes the walkie talkie between her hands.

She’s _covered_ in dirt.

Sighing, she brings the walkie to her mouth. “Gidget?”

Bridget’s reply is instant, like she’d been expecting the call.

“Franky. You’re back?”

“Yeah.”

“Get some water. You’ll feel better in the morning.”

“I know,” Franky says, and she could leave it there. Bridget would let her leave the conversation there, she knows, and usually Franky would take the out and run with it. It’s not like this is a topic she particularly wants to dredge up. Except, “It’s not the first time it’s happened. It’s just… been years.”

Bridget remains quiet, but Franky knows that she’s heard her.

“Thanks for helping me through it,” she tells her, like it’s easy.

(It is— she can’t believe how easy it is.)

When Bridget’s voice returns through the walkie, it’s in the same low, fond rasp that Franky has come to appreciate. Perhaps, just a little too much.

“You’re welcome. I said I’m here for you, didn’t I?” A pause, and Franky thinks that’s the end of their conversation, until Bridget’s voice returns. “I was so worried for you. Thinking you were in trouble, and I was all the way over here, unable to do anything for you.”

Franky frowns. “You did plenty.”

“I was about to put my boots on and come out after you,” Bridget confesses, but her breathy laughter sounds like a deflection, and Franky’s sure she’s not exaggerating. She stands slowly from the bed, making her way toward the wall of North-facing windows, until she can see Bridget’s watchtower like a solitary candle flame out there in the dark. “You know, I’d have come to get you if you needed me to?”

Franky’s face feels warm.

“Yeah,” she whispers into the walkie, and knows it’s the truth. “I know you’ve got my back.”

Silence pervades the line between them, after that, but it’s filled with something much louder.

Something heavy, and confusing.

Franky can feel her heart pounding inside her chest, like she’s back out there again, in the dark and the dirt. The difference is, she can breathe through this, and it doesn’t hurt. She feels, suddenly, like she’s only now realising just how high off the ground she is, and her head dizzies with vertigo. She clutches at the nearest surface to steady herself, but doesn’t fall.

She thinks, they’ve made something out here between them, her and Bridget.

Something that exists up here in the clouds, with the birds and the quiet.

They’re like two kites on opposite sides of a wall, but up here they can meet, tangle their lines, dance in the wind.

Franky goes to sleep, a half hour later, still wondering if it’s something that could survive if they were to bring it back down to the ground.

 

 

 

 

It’s early, earlier than Franky usually wakes up, but despite her interrupted sleep she feels well-rested.

She rolls out of bed and showers and dresses in clean clothes.

By the time the sun is visible in the sky, Franky is sitting out on the porch surrounding the single room that she lives in, a cup of coffee in one hand and her walkie talkie in the other. She sits with her back against the watchtower wall, legs stretched out in front of her, her bare feet just barely dangling over the edge.

She lifts the walkie to her lips.

“Hey, Gidget.”

The reply comes no more than ten seconds later.

“Morning. You’re up early.”

She sounds vaguely breathless, that Franky wonders what she’s been doing. Making the climb from the ground to her watchtower, perhaps?

“Just seizing the day, or whatever bullshit people say when they wake up this early and are still in a good mood.”

Bridget hums a laugh over the line. “Anything in particular I can help you with?”

“Yeah,” Franky nods, smiling. “I wanna see ya.”

A beat.

“What?”

“Do you see that ravine up ahead, the one directly between us— it’s South for you?”

Tentative silence, until Bridget confirms, “I see it.”

“I reckon if you stand on one side, and I stand on the other, I’ll easy be able to make you out.”

Franky bites the inside of her cheek while she waits for Bridget’s reply.

She’s not put a lot of thought into this, but at the same time, she has.

Mainly, the number of reasons Bridget might have to deny her.

“…I reckon so.”

Franky’s smile widens.

 _Gotcha_.

“So,” she presses, “what do you say, Gidge?”

 “What— _right now?_ ”

“No time like the present.”

Bridget laughs again, like she’s waiting for Franky to tell her that she’s kidding.

When Franky simply remains quiet, she says, “Alright. I can be there in twenty.”

“Good,” Franky grins.

In the distance, sunlight glints off the windows in Bridget’s watchtower and makes them twinkle.

“Then I’ll be seeing you soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say a huge thank you for the warm welcome into this ship - I really appreciate all the feedback! 
> 
> Lemme know your thoughts on this one, yea?


	3. To the tune of Welcome to the Jungle

_“I wanna see ya.”_

Franky tears the skin of her bottom lip from near-constant biting.

She’s ten minutes into her walk toward the ravine, her backpack over her shoulders and a snapback on top of her head, shielding her eyes from the overbearing morning sunlight. Her heart feels heavy as a plum pit inside her chest, and pounds almost as quickly as her feet do against the dry red earth. When she realises just how much her breakneck pace is causing her to perspire, Franky forces herself to slow down.

She takes a sip from her water canteen and then refastens it against her hip.

She thinks, in another twenty or so minutes, she’ll be standing as close to face to face with Bridget Westfall as she’s ever likely to come.

The thought sends a rush of what she can only place as nervous energy throughout her body. It feels like being at the top of a rollercoaster as the cart finally surpasses the peak; like plummeting face-first towards the ground, not knowing how she’ll stop herself on the way down, or if she even wants to.

Her walkie talkie feels heavy against her hip.

Once or twice, Franky pulls it from its little belt and holds it in her hand.

Wonders, is Bridget as nervous as she feels right now?

Wonders, _why_ does she feel so fucking nervous right now?

Then she puts the walkie away and keeps on moving.

 

 

By the time Franky reaches the ravine, she’s panting.

She wishes she could put it fully down to the journey, but it’s sorely far from the truth.

Dead ahead, the ravine cracks through the earth like something out of a disaster movie. An old and not very well maintained steel fence is meant to keep anybody from travelling close enough towards the very edge of the near-sheer drop, and Franky does not test her luck to cross it. She stands with her hands on the railing, pushing onto her tiptoes, trying to see how the earth looks from the inside. She isn’t very successful.

The ravine seems to cut off the entire Northern half of the national park, stretching for as far as Franky can see to both the left and the right of her current position. She’s sure there must be a crossing somewhere, or else there’s a trail from Bridget’s watchtower back to the ranger’s welcome centre. It can’t be _completely_ removed, she reasons, although Franky eyes the length of the ravine with mounting disappointment.

A part of her – a small, fanciful part of her – had imagined there’d be some way for her to cross it, when she got here.

The longer Franky looks for a route over, the less likely the idea becomes.

She’s drawn from the fantasy by a sudden crackle at her hip, and jumps.

Franky snatches the walkie up quicker than intended, and almost drops it.

“Well, I’m here,” Bridget says, sounding distant, “but I don’t see you.”

“Don’t tell me you went to that _other_ ravine?” Franky squints beneath the shade of her snapback, but she’s smirking. There’s no way they’d miss each-other, but— “Wait. I think I see you. Wave your arms around?”

In the distance, sure enough, the indistinct figure of a woman raises a single arm and waves it above her head.

Franky laughs out loud.

Then, again, but louder.

“Aw, you’re fuckin’ tiny, aren’t ya?”

In the distance, the woman – _Bridget_ – drops her waving hand to her hip, and Franky swears she feels her gaze from there, piercing. She’s still laughing as Bridget begins the short trek closer, following the path created by the steel railing on the opposite side of the ravine. Franky sets off in the opposite direction to meet her halfway.

Finally, their pacing brings them face to face, or as close as they’re going to get, out here.

Still, between them, there’s a fair enough distance that Franky can make out the blue of Bridget’s eyes, but not the individual freckles that speckle her face. Instantly, she feels all of her bravado escape her, leaving her alone on the edge of the ravine, a breeze tugging at her ponytail, eyes locked onto Bridget’s face.

All of her breath seems to leave her lungs at once.

Finally, she has a face to the voice – to the dry sense of humour that compliments her own, and the laughter that still makes Franky’s spine tingle every time she hears it – and Franky drinks her in. Bridget can’t be much taller than five-foot-nothing, even in her walking boots. She is trim, and blonde, and gently sun-kissed. She wears the fire watch uniform well – a pair of shorts, a short-sleeved shirt, and a wide-brimmed hat that she’s likely brought from home. Her hair is drawn back in a loose ponytail, but strands have been left out to frame her face.

Bridget smiles, small and crooked, when she notices Franky’s staring.

It suits her, Franky thinks.

And then, a bubble of startling clarity in Franky’s thoughts, enough to make her panic: _oh, shit_ , _Bridget’s_ _hot_.

The wobble of anxiety dislodges nervous laughter from Franky’s belly. She raises the walkie to her mouth, lowers it, and then raises it again. They’re still a fair distance away that speaking without it could be problematic.

“Gidge,” she says, grinning widely. Bridget is grinning, now, too. “You’re a skinny little thing, hey?”

Bridget raises her own walkie to her mouth with a puff of laughter. “Speak for yourself.”

“So, what do you think?”

Franky lowers the walkie and does a full spin, arms spread wide, letting Bridget see all of her. She’s in loose-fitted park-issued trousers and heavy boots, but that’s where her uniform stops. Instead of the matching top, Franky wears a white tank with a red flannel shirt left unbuttoned over it, the sleeves rolled up to about the elbow. Her smile is going absolutely nowhere. God help her, but Franky _knows_ she looks good.

“You’re taller than I expected.” 

Franky stops spinning, rolling her eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

“You look younger, too.”

“Well, that’s just my youthful complexion,” with a hand to her cheek.

She winks but, from this distance, she wonders if Bridget even notices.

“Tattoos?” Bridget asks, suddenly, although she does not sound a lick surprised.

Franky looks down to her forearms, where colourful ink peeks out from the rolled up sleeves of her shirt. When she looks back to Bridget, she’s smiling, her tongue poking at the corner of her mouth. There’s a twinkle in her eye that warns, _you brought this on yourself, Westfall_ , as she slowly eases out of both the backpack and the flannel.

If she tenses her arm muscles along the way, well, nobody can blame her…

Franky is all confidence and smiling, white teeth as she twists her arms for Bridget to better see the body art that decorates them.

“And these are just the ones you can see,” she says into her walkie, making Bridget laugh again.

“Very nice… very _you_.”

In the short two weeks that Franky has been out here, she has caught the sun. Her arms hold a healthy tan right up to the shoulder, and her tattoos pop beautifully against it. Reaching up with one arm, Franky adjusts the snapback on her head, and does not miss the way that Bridget’s gaze seems to linger on her bicep. And, yep, that’s right—

 _Welcome to the gun show, Gidget_.

Franky’s lips twist, mischievous. Overly pleased. She raises her eyebrows, letting Bridget know that she’s caught her staring, and laughs again.

The press of her tongue against her upper row of teeth speaks of deep satisfaction.

Opposite her, Bridget’s cheeks turn faintly pinker than they had been before.

Caught out, she tears her gaze away.

Bridget is still smiling to herself – that small, almost-repressed curl of her lips that Franky is fast growing to enjoy – as she stares down either end of the ravine. The effect that it has on the landscape is, admittedly, quite dramatic. Franky finds herself staring, too, but her gaze quickly returns to the woman just ahead.

“It’s something, isn’t it?” Bridget says.

Franky nods her head.

“Kinda sorry there’s no bridge.”

Bridget turns sharply back to her, expression unreadable, until her smile gives her away.

“Well, at least you’re not trying to scale it, after your escapades last night.” Her voice is light teasing, and Franky accepts the jab with a huff, unable to deny it. Her ankle is right as rain, now, but the trek back to her watchtower the night before had done her no favours. “You caught yourself?”

Bridget points to her own chin, and Franky lifts her fingers to the slight graze against her jawline.

“Yeah, little bit. S’nothing.”

Bridget nods her head. She looks unconvinced, but does not push it.

Above them, the sun continues its steady rise. The sky is blue and bright, but there’s enough of a breeze that Franky’s not yet regretting being out in the elements. She leans forward into the steel railing, crossing her arms on top of it so that it can support her weight. The scent of her own sunscreen surrounds her, rising from her bare arms where she’d lathered it in just before setting off, already anticipating that she might just lose the flannel shirt that had been protecting them.

Opposite her, Bridget mirrors her pose against the railing on her side of the ravine.

Due to their height difference, she’s not so much leaning _down_ onto it, the way that Franky has to, but she appears comfortable, nonetheless.

“It’ll be noon, soon,” Bridget says, and the implication is clear. They both have jobs to do, out here; they’re not being paid to ogle each other across a ravine like clumsy teenagers. She tilts her head up, closing her eyes, and momentarily lets herself feel the sun on her face. When she’s back beneath the protection of her sun hat, Bridget opens her eyes and smiles. “You’re staring.”

Caught out, Franky considers denying it.

If she were any less of a brazen shit, she might just.

As it is—

Franky shrugs her shoulders and asks, “What do you think I dragged you out here for?”

Across the ravine, Bridget’s eyes light up with amusement. Franky waggles her eyebrows, but for a moment the other woman is perfectly quiet, as though she’s assessing Franky and the situation that she’s willingly gotten herself into. Bridget is the first to break their gaze, the wobble at her lips broadening into a full smile.

“I know why you wanted to see me, Franky.”

Franky makes a noise of exaggerated intrigue. “Oh, you do?”

“Mm.” Bridget nods once. “It’s the same reason I wanted to see you.”

Franky holds her breath.

“Curiosity?”

Bridget laughs, loud enough that Franky hears her through the walkie as well as across the short distance between them. There’s something about hearing that laugh, in person, that just about sets her skin on fire.

“Sure, we can call it that.”

Franky’s grin widens, shark like, while Bridget’s words sit like blood in water between them.

They taste an awful lot like _acknowledgement._

That there’s something here, something between them.

Something that probably has no right to be there at all.

“What else would you call it, Gidget?”

Bridget takes a deep breath in and glances around, her gaze tracking the ravine up towards the mountains. “We shouldn’t be out here,” she says. When she meets Franky’s gaze, again, the other feels only vague disappointment that she’s not playing her game. “We can’t stay too long.”

“I know,” Franky agrees. She hates to admit it. “But we just got here. Relax.”

“We shouldn’t really have come in the first place. It’s not in the job description to leave your post unless there’s something worth investigating.”

“And you wouldn’t say there’s something worth _investigating_ here?” Franky arches her eyebrows and does not miss the way a pink tongue pokes out of Bridget’s mouth, just wetting her lips. “You wouldn’t have come all the way out here just to see me if you were afraid of breaking a few rules. You’re _not_ afraid of breaking the rules, though, are you?”

Bridget’s jaw works. “No, I’m not. If it’s for a good reason.”

“This not a good enough reason for you?” Franky presses, gesturing vaguely to all of herself.

Bridget’s gaze narrows, lips pursing. She regards Franky, mock-serious, and then hums.

Franky guffaws into her walkie. “Wow, thanks. You really know how to make a girl feel special, don’tcha?”

“I do,” Bridget agrees, sarcastic, grinning.

She exudes the kind of quiet confidence that makes Franky’s knees go a little bit weak.

Even in her fire watch uniform (which isn’t very much to look at), the way that Bridget holds herself speaks of pantsuits and tailor-made outfits, of authority and _importance_. Franky can easily picture her in the real world, miles from their current setting, with perfectly coifed hair and heels. It’s the kind of confidence that does not come from clothes, or jewellery, or whatever expensive car Bridget probably drives. It’s deeper than that, and it’s sexy as all fucking get out.

 _Goddamnit_ , but Franky loves a woman who knows who the fuck she is and what she’s about.

“I wasn’t doubtin’ ya.”

She’s willing to admit to herself that she’s had something of an easy going crush on Bridget, following their intermittent conversations.

Nothing too deep, too scathing.

Just enough to hold her interest while very little else around her could.

Now, _seeing_ _her_ , Franky’s stomach clenches. She’s very well adept at recognising her own desire, and much less so at denying herself something that she wants. What she _wants_ , then, is to sweet talk Bridget into her tiny, single watchtower bed and bury her face between her thighs until one of them passes out, but alas. Her gaze drops to the ravine separating them and, _fuck you_ , Franky thinks, not for the first time that morning.

“Right,” Bridget says, drawing Franky’s attention. She pushes herself decisively away from the railing. “Time’s up. We should get back.”

“Already?” Franky asks, like she’s testing the waters. As expected, Bridget simply nods her head. “Next time, then?”

Bridget’s smile turns bittersweet.

“You know we can’t,” she says, and Franky does.

At the least, they _shouldn’t_ , but fuck if she wants to.

She thinks about pressing the issue. She can be relentless, when she wants to be, but something about Bridget’s quiet reserve gives her pause. She doesn’t seem like the kind of woman who’d be moved by puppy dog eyes and shameless flirting.

(Then again, Franky doesn’t know her all that well yet, does she?)

“Alright,” she concedes, anyway, giving up her ground. “But you better make this up to me later.”

“Oh? How would you like me to do that?”

Franky tongues the inside of her cheek, _begging_ herself not to answer that honestly.

“Well, I’m not done with you, yet. I’ve still got questions.”

“Mm,” Bridget hums, and then laughs. She waves her walkie talkie and says, “You know where to find me.”

Franky nods her head, agreeing.

It really does feel far too early for them to part ways, already.

Franky pulls on her shirt and backpack, and then just lingers against the railing. Her own hesitation inspires Bridget’s, who stops where she’s standing and watches Franky like she’s not sure what to say. Rather, like she knows exactly what she wants to say, and isn’t sure if she should say it. She looks at war with herself, and Franky does nothing but watch her, curious and just a little hopeful.

“Let me know when you’re back safely?” Bridget asks, finally, and Franky’s smile softens.

“Sure,” she agrees, and watches Bridget turn to leave.

Franky lets her go, and her stomach plummets.

She considers calling Bridget back, or actually trying to scale the damn ravine, but doesn’t. She roots herself in place and, at the very least, admires the sway in Bridget’s hips as she walks away. Finally, shaking her head at herself, Franky pushes away from the railing and sets off on her own way back to the watchtower.

She feels—

Out of sorts. Not necessarily in a bad way.

Dreamlike.

No small part of her wonders how this could have gone, if she and Bridget were _anywhere_ else, under different circumstances. Perhaps if she met her at a bar, or in line at a café. She’d ask for Bridget’s number, and, she thinks, probably succeed. She likes to imagine they’d at least fuck the once, because, _really_. Out here, though… Franky can’t rely on her usual methods.

There’s no chance for a quick rough-and-tumble one night stand, with the earth itself conspiring against them. Worse still, the idea leaves very little to be desired, the more that Franky thinks about it, and she _has_ thought about it. More than once.

What she has instead, then, is the chance to actually get to know this woman in a way that Franky rarely gives herself time to get to know women, for fear of getting burned. Again. She has the chance to develop something more than a surface-level infatuation with Bridget, and it’s more than a little unsettling to consider.

Shaking herself, Franky quickly tucks the thought away.

Once she’s travelled a fair enough distance that she thinks she might be halfway from the watchtower, already, she lifts her walkie to her mouth.

“So,” she says into the receiver, ignoring whatever old insecurities that had started to nip at her ankles, “was I everything you imagined, or better?”

Bridget’s laughter crackles out of her walkie’s speaker.

Franky bites her lip, already anticipating the next time she’ll get to hear it again, in person.

 

 

 

 

Franky attempts to study.

She has exactly a week left of her community service, and then she’ll be able to leave the watchtower for good. Since the campfire by the lake incident, there’s been absolutely nothing of importance for her to report in her little ranger-issued log-book, and she’s growing perhaps a little bit too relaxed on the job.

It’s not that she’s actively stopped scanning the horizon for any sign of a potential bush fire.

She’s just scanning it a little less frequently, and between other tasks.

It’s not in the job description to spend the full twenty-four-hours with her eyes glued to a window, and so she figures she can get away with it, now that she’s come this far.

Tonight, Franky sits at the little desk in her watchtower and drums a pen between her fingers. The desk is a cluttered mess of second-hand textbooks and scribbled notes. Three different coloured highlighters lie abandoned across a spread of loose work sheets. Thus far, she’s had little luck in her attempts to focus on her work. She has left the desk three times already; once to pee, once to make herself the third cup of coffee of the day, and again to tidy the entire watchtower until it was looking as clean as it was when she had first arrived— which isn’t, granted, saying much.

She’s all out of procrastination material, she thinks, until her eyes land on the walkie talkie in its charging dock.

Franky doesn’t even attempt to hesitate before she makes a grab for it.

“Gidget,” she says, too loudly. “Tell me something interesting.”

There’s a short delay before Bridget’s voice comes over the walkie.

“The inventor of the frisbee was turned into a frisbee after he died.”

Franky’s face falls. “Holy fuck.”

“What are you up to?” Bridget asks, like she’s not just shattered some small piece of Franky’s reality.

“Uh, can we go back to what you just said?”

“Mmhm.”

“Firstly, what the fuck? Secondly, is that true? _Thirdly_ , why-slash-how the fuck do you even know that and why did you need to make me know that, too? Because, I wish you hadn’t. I actively wish I could turn time back thirty seconds and erase all of this conversation from existence.”

Bridget’s laughter comes indulgent and husky through the walkie’s speaker.

“You sound traumatised.”

“I think I am,” Franky agrees. “That’s not exactly the kinda interesting fact I had in mind, when I asked for one.”

“Oh, and what did you have in mind?”

Franky shrugs a shoulder. “I don’t know… what colour underwear you’re wearing, maybe?”

“Hm. I stand by this fact being more interesting.”

“Of course, you would.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Bridget presses, and Franky bites her lip. After all that, she can’t actually remember what question Bridget posed. _A frisbee_ , Franky thinks, and blanches. As though sensing as much, Bridget returns with, “What are you up to? You sounded like you needed a distraction, when you came through.”

“Oh.” Franky looks at her messy desk. “Nothin’. Trying to study. What are _you_ up to?”

“Studying?” Bridget says, and Franky grins at the unmistakable sound of intrigue in her voice. “I didn’t know you were a student.”

“Gotta keep you on your toes, haven’t I?” she teases. “But, nuh, I’m not really. Not yet, anyway. Might never even happen, if I don’t manage to focus on any of this shit.” Pouting, she pushes her pen into the small stack of textbooks, half-tempted to just shove them off the desk altogether. She’s just not ready to throw in the towel, yet. Dropping the pen with a clatter, she sighs and itches her nose.

“You’re thinking of going back to school?” Bridget guesses, and Franky nods her head, despite nobody being able to see her.

“Yep. ‘Thinking’ being the operative word, yeah? I need to pass my LSAT first.”

“LSAT?” Bridget repeats. Franky feels a lick of pride stroke against her ego. “Wow. How long have you been studying for?”

“Ah… most of the year, on and off. I started seriously considering it before I got into the, uh— the cooking competition. Kinda threw my plans off.”

She falls silent, after that, while her thoughts turn messy and dark.

She’s told Bridget very little about the competition or the incident that landed her here, and does not feel like going further into detail right now.

For her part, Bridget hasn’t asked her to elaborate.

Franky’s sure there’s a viral video of her punching Mike Pennisi square in the face making the rounds across the internet, and she’s in no rush to see it for herself. The appeal of taking her community service out here, totally off-grid, is not lost on her. A part of her is just a little bit terrified to return to regular society and face a very public judgement. She’d like to think the hype will have died down, some, by the time she returns home, but that might just be wishful thinking.

“Well,” Bridget says, drawing Franky out of her thoughts. “It sounds like now’s the perfect time for you to pursue it properly, without distraction.”

“Hm,” Franky agrees, and a small smile turns at her lips. “I don’t know. I like a little distraction, now and again.”

Bridget’s laugh warms her from the inside out. “I’m sure you do, Franky.”

 

 

She doesn’t hear from Bridget again until late.

It’s pitch black outside, with cloud cover hiding whatever light the moon and stars typically provide, out here. Franky is still at her desk, her back vaguely aching, with ink smudged down one side of her hand. It’s been so long since she last wrote anything up on pen and paper, like this, that her handwriting is a near-illegible scribble. Franky squints back at her notes and frowns.

When her walkie talkie crackles, just the once in Bridget’s signature checking-in-on-you call, Franky realises just how long she’s been sitting in the same position for, and forces herself to stop slouching. She stretches her arms high above her head, cracks her neck with a satisfied groan, and then grabs the walkie from its dock.

“Hey,” she says, looking around.

In the set of north-facing windows, Bridget’s watchtower is completely invisible to the dark.

She must have her own light off.

“Hi,” Bridget says, sounding sleepy. “You’re up late. Everything alright?”

Franky blinks.

She checks her watch, which shows twenty-past-midnight, and winces.

“Yeah, didn’t realise what time it was. Why are you still awake?”

“I got up for some water,” Bridget says, airily. “Then I saw your light was on. Just wanted to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.”

“Nothing important,” Franky smiles.

“Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’ve just been working on some stuff.” She closes her textbook and begins shuffling her work around, trying to make it into as neat a pile as possible. She can’t be bothered to pack it all away, and probably shouldn’t. “I’ve only got a week left, out here, so I thought I’d try and make the most of the peace while it lasts, ya know?”

There’s a moment of quiet in which Bridget doesn’t respond, then—

“A week?” She sounds… quiet. “Fuck, that’s gone quickly.”

Franky makes a small noise of agreement.

“You’re here for the rest of the summer, right?” she asks, already knowing the answer.

“At least another month,” Bridget confirms.

Franky’s stomach twists and then drops, and she shakes her head at herself, because she can’t do this. She shouldn’t. She’s being so _silly_. She’s known for a long time that Bridget’s stay out here would outlive her own, by a significant amount of time. And, even if they were leaving at the same time, what did Franky expect? That they would reconvene at the welcome centre and walk out of here hand in hand?

She rolls her eyes at herself.

Even if there was enough of a something between them to explore it in the real world, Franky knows that’ll never happen. She has her social circle, and Bridget has _her_ social circle, and the two will never Venn Diagram together, despite Franky’s frequent fantasies.

She shouldn’t hope for anything otherwise.

And, yet.

She raises the walkie talkie to her mouth.

“Do you think, when you get out of here—”

Franky cuts herself off, scrunching her face up. She wants to drag those words back into her throat and swallow them down into the absolute bowels of her body, where they’ll never be able to surface from again. Her fist clenches around the walkie talkie and Franky uses it to hit herself on the forehead, not hard.

 _Idiot_.

“Yes?” from Bridget, and Franky opens her eyes and stops breathing.

“You know what I’m gunna ask?” she tries, tentative, as if she can worm her way back out of having to say it.

She doesn’t want to say it. Mostly, she doesn’t want Bridget’s inevitable answer.

She still has a week here; she could just enjoy the time while it lasts—

“Mm… I do.”

Franky blows out a breath. “So?”

Her walkie talkie remains quiet for a long time. Franky begins to sweat.

Finally, and quietly, Bridget returns.

“I’m not opposed to seeing you again.”

Franky thinks she’s misheard her over the sound of her own blood rushing through her ears.

She’s quiet for too long, and then fumbles with the walkie.

“Well, I want to see you again, too,” she rushes to say, heart hammering inside her chest. She bites her lip and closes her eyes, and bangs her head forward once, to stop herself from shouting, _FUCK YES_. She takes a deep breath in, steadying her voice. “Maybe we should exchange numbers, and then when you get out… you can call me?”

 _You can do whatever the fuck you want to me_ , Franky thinks, but by the sheer grace of God, she refrains from actually saying that out loud.

“I’d like that,” Bridget tells her, and Franky has long since learned to recognise the smile in her voice. It only broadens her own, hearing it now. “Now, are you going to get in bed?”

“Definitely,” Franky laughs. “Give me a moment.”

She tosses the walkie towards her bed and lifts her tank top up and over her head.

She’s washed and dressed for bed minutes later, and turns the light out so that she can stumble towards her bed in the dark. It takes her a moment of hand-patting to find the walkie again in the tangle of sheets. Once she has it safely in hand, Franky lies back against her pillow with one arm behind her head, the other holding the walkie to her mouth.

“Alright, I’m in bed.”

Bridget replies, amused, “I meant for you to sleep, Franky, not to continue our conversation.”

“What if I want to continue it, though?”

“It’s way too late,” Bridget groans. “I’m not staying up with you.”

“Spoil sport.”

“Yep.”

Franky grins, catching her bottom lip between her teeth. “So, what colour _are_ your undies, anyway?”

A beat.

Franky doubts she’ll get a reply, but—

“Pink.”

“Describe them.”

“It’s a thong.”

 _Fuck_.

“What else are you wearing?”

“Just a t-shirt.”

“Fuck.”

“I’m going to sleep, Franky,” Bridget whispers, and Franky audibly whimpers. “Goodnight.”

 

 

 

Franky’s final day at the watchtower comes early.

She spends a fitful night tossing and turning, and finally rises before the sun. She does not bother to turn on the watchtower light, as it’s already well-lit enough that she can see perfectly well without it. Outside her fishbowl of windows, the sky is blue and cool, and just beginning to turn yellow in one corner. Franky gathers fresh water from the tap on the ground, not bothering to change or put on shoes, and by the time she reaches the top of the winding staircase again, she’s barely out of breath.

She puts the little kettle on to boil, prepares a mug for coffee, and takes in the view while she waits.

Four weeks ago, she’d doubted that she’d last the month out here.

Only last week, she’d even considered putting a call in to the welcome centre and asking to prolong her stay.

Even now, she’s a little tempted to, but she knows her time is up. The single room that has been her home for the past month, no longer feels like her own, and she knows she needs to give it up for the next inhabitant. She wonders, vaguely, who will be keeping Bridget company for the remainder of _her_ stay out here.

A small, easily-ignored part of her flickers with jealousy, but she quickly brushes it away.

Once the kettle has boiled, Franky resumes her regular morning routine and takes her coffee outside, onto the surrounding porch. She stands with her elbows braced on the wooden railing, sipping intermittently on her drink, and watching the sky change colour.

She feels… at peace, she thinks, and ready to face whatever awaits her back home.

 

 

“Well,” Franky puffs, casting her gaze around the watchtower, “I think I’m packed.”

“Are you sure you haven’t missed anything?” Bridget asks.

Franky squints, as though it’ll help her to notice anything she’s left behind.

“Nuh, think I’m good.” She double checks the desk drawers, anyway, but brings up nothing of interest. The bed is made, and the kitchenware is cleaned and stacked neatly away in the cupboard it had come from. She’s practically emptied the fridge, but there’s milk, and coffee, and she’s even re-filled one of the water containers for the watchtower’s next occupant. “Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone, hey?”

Bridget’s laughter hums out of the walkie, and Franky closes her eyes, savours it.

It might be a while before she hears it again, _if_ she hears it again.

“I’ll try.”

“You’ve got my number written down somewhere?”

“Yes,” Bridget agrees.

“Good, don’t lose it.”

Franky’s gaze settles on the desk, and the little folded up piece of paper that she’s tucked under the walkie talkie’s charging dock. ‘ _This is Bridget. She’s a nosy cow, but be nice, or else._ ’ She hopes, for Bridget’s sake, that whoever replaces her up here is even half as interesting as she is.

Well.

Maybe a small part of her doesn’t.

She shoulders her rucksack – the big one, filled with her clothes and daily essentials, and those goddamn textbooks that she just had to bring, didn’t she? – and takes a moment to centre herself again with its added weight on her back. Fuck, but she’s not looking forward to the trek back to the welcome centre.

“I’m ready to set off,” she says into her walkie. “Keep me company on the walk?”

“Of course, I will.”

Franky grins and steps outside, locking the watchtower door behind her.

“Good, ‘cause I’m going to tell you _in detail_ about all the good fucking food I’m going to make, once I get back. No more rice and beans with whatever shit the rangers decide to leave for me. I don’t know, I might even stop at _Maccas_ once I’m back, pick up a burger, dip my fries in the milkshake—”

Bridget groans loudly. “You don’t need to be such an _arse_.”

Franky tips her head back and laughs.

“Yep, I do. S’kinda just who I am, Gidge.”

“I won’t miss it,” Bridget snarks, but Franky’s grin persists.

“Liar. You’ll miss me something rotten.”

“Yeah,” Bridget sighs. “I suppose I will.”

 

 

 

 

It’s late, when Franky returns home.

The light in her studio apartment feels too bright, after becoming accustomed to the single overhanging dim bulb in the watchtower. Franky drops her rucksack in front of the door, and just stands there a moment, taking it in. She feels—

Like she shouldn’t be here.

There’s something about the polished hard wood flooring, and the modern kitchen, that looks intrinsically _wrong_. Outside of her window, a police car goes blaring down the street with sirens and lights, and Franky sighs a little to herself. Already, everything feels too loud and too contained, and far too clean. She wonders how she’s never noticed how drab her little apartment looks, before, but she’s filled with the sudden urge to redecorate.

Maybe even buy a few house plants, she thinks.

It isn’t until she’s under the hot spray of her power shower that the tension sinks out of her muscles.

By the time she crawls into bed, she is fed and clean and lightly moisturised, that she’s feeling soft all over. She starfishes across her mattress, luxuriating being in a double bed once again, and then rolls over to bury her face in her pillow. Fuck, and she’s missed proper laundry detergent and her washing machine.

She settles, but even as she comes close to sleep, Franky misses the distinct weight of a walkie talkie in the palm of her hand.

She pictures Bridget out there in her watchtower, beneath all those stars, and sighs.

No small part of her is aching for the next month to be over, already, and for Bridget to return home.

Franky can only hope that she’ll call her, once she does.

But, if her month in the bush has taught her anything, it’s that she’s become very proficient at _hoping_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we go. 
> 
> Next chapter is going to be the final chapter and, just a heads up, the rating is likely going to increase. 
> 
> Thanks again for all the feedback, it means the world to read your thoughts back on this. :)


	4. You're goddamn right, I've got a need to be held

Franky is up later than she should be, when she realises what day it is.

Her studio apartment is lit by a single bedside corner lamp, and the streetlight outside her living room window. Weak light stretches across the bed where she sits, struggling to illuminate the living-kitchen-dining area with its new round table and chairs, and the row of potted plants in front of the window that leave long shadows across the hardwood flooring.

Franky sits alone in bed with a moleskin diary resting against her bent knees, writing. It has to be pushing midnight, but it’s been a while since she has checked the time and a poorly-judged evening cup of coffee has left her feeling wired. She’s just finished filling in her itinerary for the week – a second reminder to pay her phone bill, a job interview, and her weekly therapy session – when her gaze catches on the date, and stops.

Despite the hour, the heat from the day lingers in the dark of the apartment and keeps it warm even when Franky has left the window open on the latch.

In that moment, she experiences a full-body shiver.

It’s been a full month and a week to the date since she left the watchtower, which means Bridget—

Bridget must have returned home, already, and has not called.

The cold, hard fact of it feels like swallowing a pebble and feeling it sink all the way down to her stomach. She feels heavy and tired. For the next ten or fifteen minutes, Franky sits quietly by herself, and thinks. She thinks of Bridget returning home and losing the sheet of paper that she wrote Franky’s number upon— misplacing it, forgetting it, leaving it behind in the watchtower as she left. Then Franky imagines her crumpling it in her fist, tossing it into a bin. She imagines her never having written her number down, at all.

When Franky returns to herself, the bedside alarm clock reads 12:42, and her apartment feels quiet and cool.

She stands from the bed just long enough to close the window and draw the blinds. She tosses her diary and pen into the drawer in her bedside table, and turns out the lamp. Beneath the bed sheets, she tosses from one side and then the other.

She had taken Bridget’s number. She has it written down, kept safely, tucked away somewhere in the back of a drawer. She knows exactly where it is, and how soft the creases have become from repeated unfolding and re-folding. She could pull it out, right now, and ring her.

At the back of Franky’s mind, her anger lies in wait. It is always within easy reaching distance, and ready.

Just there, in case she needs it.

She pictures herself dialling Bridget’s number, and she rehearses what she will say to her – what she will accuse her of, what she will _demand_ , what she will shout and yell and the expletives she will use and in what order. It would be so easy, she thinks, to reach for her phone right now and dig the number out of its hiding place, and let that anger out into the world. She wants to set something on fire.

Franky takes a breath. Closes her eyes.

Releases it, along with every intention of malice.

It’s easier, these days, with her new coping mechanisms.

It’s easier, because it’s exactly what she had expected to happen, even on that very last day in the watchtower. She can’t exactly fault Bridget for that.

 

 

 

 

Days come and go.

Franky tracks the passing of time between the sheets of her moleskin diary, but her life has become far too busy, of late, for her to do much more than acknowledge each night that settles without any hint of communication from Bridget. Her job interview goes better than expected, she is still in the midst of an apartment-wide redecoration, and she has set a date for her LSAT. Any spare time she has, that she doesn’t spend eating or sleeping or taking care of basic hygiene requirements, is for her studies.

Franky does not have the time to sit and ponder what she might have done wrong. At night, close to sleep, her exhausted mind dregs up an infinite rolodex of rhetorical questions. Was she too much? Was she not _enough_? Had she said something, or, perhaps, had she _not said the right thing_ —?

Eventually, as most things do, given enough time, even that stops.

Franky’s life continues on, unimpeded.

 

 

 

Mid-week, the summer heatwave breaks with torrential downpour.

Franky is caught beneath the full force of it during her run from her car to her apartment building, her jacket half-off and covering her head. She’d left home that morning without an umbrella. She probably does not _own_ an umbrella. She can’t have been out in it for longer than twenty seconds, but the rain soaks quickly through her jeans and what it can find of her shirt. She reaches her front door with soggy boots, which she kicks off on the mat, and wet socks that leave feet-shaped imprints on the hardwood flooring. It’s barely five ‘o clock but the sky is heavy and bruise-coloured with cloud cover, and her apartment is shrouded in the evening din.

Franky turns the bedside lamp on before looking for a change of clothes.

Once drier and warmer, she pulls her hair up into a loose bun and cleans her face.

She’d had a late lunch, and is in no mood to start preparing dinner yet, so she ends up on the couch with the television on low, half-drowsing. There is always something for her to be doing, whether for herself, her apartment, or in preparation for her exam, but it’s been a bitch of a week and the thought of moving from the couch is painful.

So, she doesn’t, for at least an hour.

She’s half-watching a long-standing drama series that she doesn’t need to have been following from the beginning to understand, when her phone rings.

Franky is slow to reach for it, and frowns at the number displayed on her screen. It’s not one that her phone recognises, but there’s something familiar enough about the last three or four digits that she doesn’t outright decline the call, either. It’s the only reason she hits answer.  

“Hello?”

“Franky?”

Franky’s world dissolves.

“Hi, it’s Bridget, from the— are you there?”

She blinks. “Yeah.”

In her stomach, something akin to excitement, quickly souring.

“I didn’t know if it was too late to ring,” Bridget says in a rush, and she does sound apologetic, for her part. The excitement in Franky’s stomach is extinguished like a match. “I’ve not caught you at a bad time, have I?”

“Nuh,” Franky says, sniffs. She works her jaw. “You found my number then, hey? Took ya long enough.”

She doesn’t mean to sound _bitter_ , but she is.

“Yes. Franky, listen—”

“Nup, it’s fine. You don’t need to explain yourself. We barely know each other, it’s not like I was really expecting this to go anywhere.”

“You weren’t?” Bridget asks, and Franky’s breath catches. Taking advantage of her hesitation, Bridget continues, “I’ve only just got home, Franky. I meant to— I wanted to call sooner. Something came up with the job, whoever was supposed to be taking my post after I left had dropped out, and they needed somebody to fill in at the last minute. They asked if I’d stay just until they found proper cover, and… I couldn’t really say no.”

Franky sits up a little straighter on her couch.

“Oh…”

“Yeah,” whispered, amused, still a little apologetic. “I didn’t have any way to let you know what had happened, until now. I was worried you’d think the worst of me.”

“I did,” Franky admits, wrinkling her nose. She doesn’t sound even the least bit apologetic, either. “So… you’ve been thinking about me?”

Silence on the other end of the line, until Bridget’s quiet laughter rasps out. Franky’s body reacts as it always does, with a shiver down the spine, and she sighs and rolls her eyes at herself. That’ll never get old.

“I have…”

“Great.” Franky sits back against the couch. “Anything interesting?”

“Perhaps.”

“Oh? I want details.”

“Absolutely not.”

Franky barks a laugh. “Are you holdin’ out on me, Gidge?”

“Would I ever?”

“Hm,” Franky smirks, turning the TV down so that it’s nothing louder than a background hum. She’s missed this – this back-and-forth, give-and-take that she and Bridget had cultivated up there in the clouds together. She’s a little surprised to realise how much. “So, you’re home. First night?” Bridget makes a noise of agreement. “Takeout or dining in?”

“As soon as I got out, I bought a bag of chips and ate them in my car,” Bridget confesses.

Franky makes a sympathetic noise. “If you’d have called any earlier, I could’ve whipped something up for you.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah— reckon it’d be more satisfying than your chips, anyway.”

“Mm, I don’t know about that.”

Franky scoffs, loudly. “Now, you’re just trying to provoke me.”

Bridget laughs, low and quiet, and Franky captures her bottom lip between her teeth and scrapes it a little. Outside, the wind picks up and rain begins to pummel against the apartment window in a steady audible drone that kind of just makes Franky want to close her eyes and nap on the couch. She’ll have to make dinner soon – should probably have already started it – but she’s reluctant to put her phone down.

“So,” she says, and feels her stomach tight with nerves. “What made you call?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line, but it feels infinitely different to the silence that had stretched between their walkie talkie conversations. Franky knows that Bridget is _just there_ on the other side of the line, caught up in the same moment as Franky herself is caught up in. There’s something almost intimate about it, when Bridget takes a deep breath in and sighs it out again, and Franky hears it right against her ear.

“You know why I rang.”

Franky wets her lips. “I do, but I want to hear you say it.”

Bridget makes a long-suffering noise, but it only encourages Franky’s grin.

“I want to see you,” she says, like _there_. Like, _are you happy now?_ “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

All her cards on the table, then.

Franky nods her head.

“What are you doing tonight?”

“Tonight?” Bridget does not hide her surprise well. “I was going to take a bath and get an early night. Maybe eat something that isn’t covered in salt and vinegar.”

“Right… and how set in stone are those plans?”

A spike in the quiet on Bridget’s end of the line. Franky holds her breath to match its pace.

“I could be swayed.”

“Yeah?”

“What did you have in mind?”

“Something that involves a lot less clothing than you’re probably wearing right now…?”

“ _Franky_.”

“Dinner,” Franky says, trying to tamper down her smile. “Drinks? See where the night takes us.”

“See where the night takes us,” Bridget parrots, breathy, laughing. “You have a place in mind?”

“I have several.”

“To eat, Franky— _food_ , before you start.”

“Yes,” Franky says, exaggerated, rolling her eyes. “Jesus. I’ll text you the address. How long do you need to get ready?”

Bridget makes a thoughtful noise. “Give me an hour?”

“Sure.”

Their conversation peters out, after that.

Bridget turns her bath into a shower and quickly ends the call to give herself enough time to get herself prepared to face society. Franky decides it won’t hurt to have a quick one, herself, and makes sure that she has something to wear that doesn’t require ironing. She blow-dries her hair straight and re-applies her make-up, and tries not to over-think the quick spritz of leather-scented perfume against her collar and both cuffs.

She’d sent Bridget a quick text confirming the venue and its address, shortly after ringing the place to ensure they don’t require a previous reservation for a table. It’s a lively restaurant-and-bar that Franky has been to before, and it’s not uncommon to see people in their finest dress mixing amongst others in sliders and shorts.

Still, she dons a pair of black skinny jeans, a sleeveless white shirt with a daring neckline, and her best jacket. She’s on the cusp of casual, but not so far that if Bridget were to dress up, she’d feel out of place by Franky’s side.

Franky fastens a necklace around her throat and leaves with her keys in hand, dizzy with anticipation.

 

 

 

Bridget does not make her wait long, but she does make her wait.

It’s quarter past eight and the restaurant section of the restaurant-and-bar is beginning to thin out. She sits at the bar, where she’s been for just long enough to have ordered a cranberry juice (virgin) and made it a quarter of the way through the glass while occasionally listening in to the conversations happening around her.

She’s sat herself in perfect view of the door, which means that every time it opens, Franky’s pulse spikes and then immediately drops again when it is not Bridget who enters. Franky taps her fingers against the glass and bides her time, and thinks, perhaps, she needs way more practice at this than what she currently has under her belt.

It’s not that Franky’s never been on a date before.

It’s just _been a while_ , is all.

When Bridget arrives – _if_ Bridget arrives, because Franky’s anxiety is a vicious little voice inside her head and assures her that this is still a possibility – will she expect a hug, or a kiss on the cheek? Is Franky to greet her as a new friend, or an old one? Which might she prefer?

The lights in the bar section are dim but warm, the music upbeat; both are doing everything within their power to assuage her nerves, however unsuccessfully. She almost regrets not adding a shot of vodka to her drink order, but Franky had driven here, and she intends to drive back. She’s been on the wrong side of the law enough, as of late, for her to think against pushing her luck tonight.

Outside, the rain continues to fall in a steady shower. An occasional gust of wind sends it sputtering against the nearest windows, and seated patrons remark over-loudly on the sudden turn in the weather. The scent of petrichor still clings to Franky’s jacket, which has been hung over the back of her bar stool to dry out.

The door opens again.

The rain sounds intensify, and a warm gust of humid air blows inside.

Franky’s gaze slips across to the door, already resigned to the fact that she most likely won’t recognise whoever enters, but she does. Shaking an umbrella out by her hip, Bridget allows the door to close behind her while she brushes the loose strands of her pinned hair back into place. Bridget’s gaze traverses the bar, eyes keen and wide, until they land on Franky.

She does a double take, and the whole world stops, mid-breath.

Franky swears the volume of the bar sinks to background din around her. She stands from her stool, still facing Bridget, while the air turns quick and electric between them. Franky can feel her heart racing in her chest, her lips slowly widening into a smile. For her part, Bridget takes a moment longer to recover; her smile deepens the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, and Franky’s breath all but rushes back out of her.

The fire watch uniform had done Bridget _no_ favours.

Even tucked beneath a jacket, as it is, Franky’s mouth waters at the sight of her figure in the black pencil skirt and cream blouse peeking out from beneath it.

“Hi,” Bridget says as she nears, obliterating Franky’s lingering nerves as she swoops in for a kiss to the cheek with nary a second guess. She’s wearing heels just high enough that she’s only an inch shorter than Franky, and does not have to strain to reach her. Bridget brings with her the smell of outdoors – heavy rain and hot air – and just a hint of perfume that Franky feels immediately hooked on.

“I almost didn’t recognise you,” Bridget continues, drawing back. One palm lingers against Franky’s bare arm, fingers trailing the length of a tattoo before she releases her. Franky tries not to squirm as Bridget’s gaze drops to her outfit, lingering about as long as Franky was hoping for at the window of her cleavage. “This suits you.”

“Ta,” Franky grins. “You scrub up nicely yourself.”

Bridget laughs and tucks her umbrella under one arm while loosening her jacket with the other. Franky tries _very hard_ not to stare, and only marginally succeeds, if Bridget’s lingering smile is anything to judge by. She does not comment on it, but juts her chin out toward Franky’s glass of cranberry juice on the bar behind her.

“You haven’t been waiting long, have you? I suppose I’m running a little late.”

“Nuh, I practically just got here. Let me get you a drink, though, and we can grab a table.” Franky appraises her, eyes narrowing. “Wine?” she guesses, and smiles at Bridget’s nod of agreement. “Red or white?”

“Red’s fine. I’ll get that table, shall I?”

 

Franky brings their drinks over once she’s been served.

The table turns out to be a circular booth in the corner, overlooked by a window with a view into the back of the restaurant. The greenery looks sad and wet in the early darkness. Bridget has shrugged out of her jacket and hung it over the little coat hook set into the side of the booth, meant for that exact purpose. She sits with her elbows on the table, arms loosely folded, and casting her gaze around the room. When Franky sets their drinks down and takes her seat, Bridget’s attention returns to her with a smile.

“Do you come here often?” she asks after thanking Franky for her drink.

Franky lifts her shoulders in a lazy shrug.

“Not for a while, really, but it’s pretty chill and the food is good. I like the atmosphere.”

Bridget hums agreement and takes a sip of her wine.

“It’s pleasant,” she agrees, lowering her drink, and then blinks when she catches the look on Franky’s face. “What is it?”

“Nothin’.”

“You’re staring.”

“Am I?”

Bridget arches her eyebrows, and Franky tries to wipe the smile off her face, but apparently not hard enough. She laughs and shakes her head.

“Sorry.” She wets her lips, scrunches her nose up a little, and sits up a little straighter. “Fuck. I just wasn’t expecting this. I thought for sure I’d scared you off, or maybe you just weren’t interested, I don’t know. I’d pretty much given up hope when you never rang.”

She sobers, then, and Bridget’s gaze softens.

“I did, though,” she reminds her. “And what exactly do you think I’m _interested in_ now?”

A coy smile turns at her lips, and Franky cannot help but laugh again, because _really_? She eyes Bridget as though to ask as much, gesturing to the outfit, the make-up, the pinned up hair with the strands left loose to frame her face. The glint that makes Bridget’s blue-blue eyes sparkle and shine. The effort that Bridget has put into her appearance has not been missed, nor is it at all unappreciated.

“Are you saying that you’re not?”

Franky bites her tongue between her teeth, but she is grinning, rakish and wide.

She does not let Bridget hide or back away, but Bridget attempts neither.

“No,” she admits, quietly. Her laughter is low and raspy, and just about crawls beneath Franky’s skin, sets her on fire. “I’m not saying that at all.”

Before Franky can tease her further, a waiter approaches to ask if they’re ready to order.

Bridget jumps to open the menu sitting in front of her, completely neglected until this moment, and makes a hedging noise as she skims through the lists of dishes for something that grabs her attention. “I don’t think I could eat too much,” she says, apologetic, but Franky only smiles. She does not bother to open her own menu. 

“Any food allergies or dislikes I should be aware of?” she asks.

The waiter patiently overlooks them.

Bridget shakes her head, “Nup.”

“Then can we get the Nduja Tortellini to share?” Franky orders, and turns conspiratorially to Bridget. “If that’s alright? It’s always too much for one person.”

“I’m fine with that,” Bridget agrees, and the waiter leaves them to it.

She has the kind of wide-eyed look about her of a person who’s just spent two months in the bush with extremely limited company, Franky thinks. She’s recognised the expression on her own face countless times since returning home, and has to marvel a little, now, as Bridget eyes the other patrons with equal glee and weariness. It’s good to be back amongst society, but it’s a lot.

“Do you usually stay out there for so long?” Franky asks, taking a sip from her cranberry juice.

Bridget turns back to her, caught out.

“Not usually, no. A month is usually more than long enough, for me, but I know some who go the whole summer.” She makes a kind of wincing face at the idea. “Can’t imagine anything worse.”

Franky smirks. “What made you do it in the first place?”

“Truthfully?”

“Yeah.”

Bridget’s smile turns wry. “A break-up.”

“Oh,” Franky laughs, and then quickly stems it. Bridget doesn’t look offended. “Was it bad, or—?”

“Mutual.”

“Mm. How long had you been together?”

“Oh, god… about six years.”

“Shit,” Franky grimaces, and Bridget gives a delicate shrug. “Sorry.”

She shakes her head.

“Don’t be. It was all very _mature_ and boring,” Bridget says, rolling her eyes in a kind of self-deprecating way that Franky doesn’t altogether buy. “By the end of it, I was just sick of everything. It was either go on holiday, sell my house, or— well. I wanted to get away for a little while. Helped that I was getting paid for it, I suppose.”

Franky’s lips twitch, her smile soft and small.

“But you went back,” she points out, and Bridget makes a noise of agreement. “It couldn’t have been that bad, hey?”

“Right. And do you think you’d ever do it again?”

“Not a fuckin’ chance,” Franky answers honestly, and they both laugh.

Bridget lifts her wine glass to her mouth, and Franky tries not to stare. She doesn’t quite know how to describe it, but every single one of Bridget’s movements are riveting. The way her fingers curl around the glass from underneath, the purse of her lips, the way she almost-closes her eyes and then re-focuses on Franky above the rim. Franky’s mouth feels like cotton, and she regrets her choice in drink when she tries to quench her thirst with a mouthful of dry cranberry juice.

She clears her throat.

“So, what are your plans now that you’re home?”

Bridget sets her glass down with a sigh.

“Unpack,” she answers, miserable at the thought, and then she winces. “Make sure my plants are still alive. I have the rest of the weekend to get straight, and then it’s back to work come Monday morning.” She flicks a strand of hair away from her face. “Makes you miss the bush, doesn’t it?”

Franky hums, smirking.

“I guess,” she says, but it sounds more like, _not really_. Bridget’s eyes twinkle with amusement. “If anything, it just made me want to start taking shit seriously. My first day back, I put out feelers for a new job. I started re-decorating!” She throws a hand out, shaking her head, and pauses for Bridget’s laughter. “I was more than ready to take my life off hold.”

“Dare I ask,” Bridget begins, “about the LSAT?”

Franky blinks, and then smiles.

It’s… uncharacteristically bashful.

“Oh, you remembered that, did ya?” she asks, and Bridget hums and nods her head. Franky’s face scrunches up, but she can’t quite stop the smile. “I’ve booked it.”

“Franky—!” Bridget says, and she’s beaming. “That’s great. When is it?”

“Oh, months away.” She waves a hand, dismissive. “I still need to cram for it.”

“As long as you’re not taking on too much at once…”

“Don’t worry, I can multitask,” Franky winks.

Bridget laughs, again. “I have no doubt.”

Franky’s certain she’ll ever get enough of the sound.

 

Conversation halts briefly when their waiter reappears, a large dish of pasta in hand.

It’s placed somewhat equally between them, to the sound of harmonious thanks, and Franky takes the opportunity to order a jug of water for the table. She slides in closer to Bridget on the booth, so that they can both eat comfortably from the same bowl, and drags her cutlery and drink along with her. She’s close enough that her foot accidentally knocks against Bridget’s beneath the table, but when she meets the other’s gaze, Bridget is smiling.

“I shouldn’t have spoiled my dinner,” she sighs, but Franky shakes her head.

“Don’t worry, I’ll finish what you can’t.”

 

Like this, they make it through the bowl and several further points of conversation.

Once she’s had her fill, Bridget sets her fork down on a napkin and allows Franky to finish what’s left of the pasta while she nurses her wine. It barely lasts five minutes, but Bridget doesn’t point this out. With dinner finished off, Franky tucks the bowl and their dirty cutlery out of the way, along with her now empty cranberry juice glass. She takes a sip of water and sits back heavily in the booth, angling her body to face Bridget.

Bridget sits similarly, hands folded against her stomach, head resting against the booth.

Her gaze is soft and settled on Franky’s face.

Franky bites her lip, internally debating.

“I’m glad you called,” she says, finally, and Bridget’s lips curl upward.

She looks the kind of tired that comes with a full stomach and a glass of wine, and Franky feels immediately guilty for wanting to keep Bridget out. It’s her first night home in months, she reminds herself, and wonders why Bridget had agreed to it in the first place. If their roles were reversed, Franky would probably already be in bed. Still, she has Bridget all to herself, in the flesh, and she’s reluctant to let her go.

“Do you want to call it a night?” she asks, worry creeping into her expression.

Bridget shakes her head minutely. “Not yet.”

Franky’s smile returns. She tests her luck.

“Wanna get out of here?”

She watches Bridget’s expression shift from hopeful to pleased amusement as she nods her head.

“I know a pretty decent place nearby that has live music,” Franky says, and then pinches her bottom lip between her teeth. She is sitting close enough to Bridget that she can feel the heat coming off her. Close enough that, had she the balls, she could reach right out and touch her. Push her hair behind her ear, or play with the bracelet around her wrist. Franky’s heartrate spikes at the thought. “Or… I mean, I don’t live too far away, if you’d prefer something quieter.”

Bridget does not react immediately. Franky tries to decipher the neutral expression on her face, until Bridget’s eyes light up and her lips give her away with a smile. She shifts conspiratorially closer, as if about to discuss a secret, and places her hand on Franky’s leg just below the knee. Heat sinks through Franky’s jeans.

“Are you asking me to come home with you?”

Franky swallows thickly. “What would you say if I was?”

Bridget’s entire face softens.

“ _Finally_.”

 

 

Franky covers the bill, and does not give Bridget a chance to argue against the decision.

She had dragged Bridget out here, after all, and on her first day home in two months, no less. Franky holds the door to the bar-and-restaurant open, dismayed to discover that the rain has not let up any, until Bridget links her arm through Franky’s and shelters them with her umbrella. They walk hurriedly to Franky’s car.

Inside, they sit a moment to catch their breath.

Franky turns her windscreen wipers on and frowns. She adjusts the volume on the radio. Beside her, Bridget folds her wet umbrella into the foot well and wipes her hands off on her jacket. She catches Franky’s eye as she’s fastening her seatbelt, and they share a grin. When Franky pulls out of her parking spot, she can still feel a phantom sensation against her leg, warm where Bridget had touched her.

It fills her with a simmering kind of desire the entire way home.

 

 

Once the car is parked again, just a short distance from Franky’s apartment building, they exit quickly and bundle together beneath the umbrella. A particularly strong gust of wind turns it immediately inside out, and Franky has to duck and dive to prevent herself from getting a face full. She grabs one filmy segment of it and tries to tug it the right way around, until Bridget, laughing, tells her to leave it.

“It’s only a cheap one, don’t worry,” she tells her, grabbing Franky’s arm, and they power-walk-jog to the entrance.

By the time they reach Franky’s door, they’re soaked.

Franky peels her jacket away from her to hang up on the wall, and groans. Bridget follows suit, laughing. She’s clearly fared worse in their fight against the umbrella, which she leaves on the door mat to dry and think about its actions. Her hair and clothes are wet, and there are still rain drops on her face. Franky is overwhelmed by the want to kiss her. The shiver of damp clothes against her skin deters her, but just about.

“Want me to find you something to wear? You’re drenched.”

Bridget looks down at herself, bottom lip caught between her teeth, and then nods.

“Please.”

Franky gives her a quick once-over and hums. She moves to her wardrobe on the other side of the studio apartment. The sound of Bridget’s heeled footsteps tells her that the other woman is exploring, but that suits Franky just fine. She’s not sure she’s actually got anything in her wardrobe that will comfortably fit Bridget, unless—

Ah.

She draws out an oversized jumper – the long-sleeved, soft material kind that she likes to wear for bed during winter – and quickly gives it the sniff test. It’s clean. It’s a little wrinkled from where it’s been folded up amongst her sleepwear, but it’s also the only thing, short of the one and only dress in Franky’s entire clothing collection, that will preserve her modesty.

Briefly, she turns to Bridget and holds the jumper up.

“What do you reckon?” she asks. “I can find you some leggings, but you’ll have to roll them up.”

Bridget turns to her, still bent slightly to better see the plants that Franky keeps in front of her window. She smiles and shrugs, “that’s fine,” and turns back to complete her inspection. Franky refolds the jumper and adds a pair of socks and her dressing gown to the pile, before setting them on her dining room table.

“You can change in the bathroom,” she says, pointing it out. “I’ll hang your clothes up to dry.”

Bridget rights herself with a smile. “Thank you.”

While Bridget changes, Franky swaps her top for a dry and comfortable t-shirt. She takes the opportunity to do a mad sweep of her apartment, tucking away anything that can be put away, and straightening anything that can be straightened. When the bathroom door cracks open again, Franky is pouring two glasses of wine in the open plan kitchen, and turns to see Bridget. She just about keeps from ogling.  

Bridget is wearing the jumper, which covers her to about mid-thigh, and Franky’s plain black socks. Without her heels on, she’s well and truly drowned. She’s folded the dressing gown over one arm, and her own clothes over the other, which she hangs over a heater. It’s not turned on, but it’s as good a place as any for them to hang while they dry out. When she turns back to Franky, she gives a self-conscious tug at the hem of the jumper, and Franky’s gaze drops to tan thighs before she can stop herself.

It’s decidedly _unfair_ , she thinks, that Bridget looks so good wearing her clothes.

All Franky wants to do is get her out of them, again.

Shaking herself, she screws the cap on the wine and brings their glasses over to the couch. There’s quiet music playing from her iPod dock, and she’s turned on another lamp in the living area to better light the place. Franky sits in one corner of the couch, and cannot help but smile when Bridget curls up beside her, arranging the dressing gown over her legs.

She takes a wine glass from Franky with quiet thanks.

“I like your place,” Bridget says, glancing around. “It’s very open. Are the plants new?”

Franky nods her head.

“Relatively. How’d you know?”

“Because they’re still alive,” Bridget laughs, and Franky feigns offence.

“I didn’t invite you back here to insult me, ya know?”

“No?” Franky shakes her head. “What did you invite me back here for then, hm?”

“Reckon you already know that.” Franky wets her lips and juts her chin towards Bridget’s lap. “I already got you out of your pants, didn’t I?”

Bridget tries to hold her laughter in, unsuccessfully. She concedes the point with a nod. Smirking, Franky angles her body into Bridget, curling one arm behind her over the back of the couch. Her body language exudes confidence; she’s in her element, and absolutely no rush. Bridget turns further into the pseudo-embrace. She takes a sip from her wine and hums appreciatively. Franky does the same, if just to wet her suddenly dry mouth.

Their eyes meet over the rims of their glasses, and desire coils low in Franky’s stomach.

“So,” she says, clearing her throat. “Work on Monday. What’s that looking like?”

Bridget seems surprised that she’d asked.

“Early start,” she says, her gaze drifting away in thought. “Paperwork to catch up on, a morning debriefing. Most likely new admissions. There’ll be files to go through from my stand-in, and my schedule has probably already been filled with appointments.” She turns back to Franky with a wry smile. “Lots of reading.”

“New admissions?” Franky asks, frowning, and Bridget nods her head. “Can’t you only take on a certain amount at a time?”

“Mm, not quite. I don’t get to decide how many new admissions we get, I just have to be there when they arrive. Not all of the women _want_ to speak to a psychologist right off the bat, but it seems to help those who do.”

Franky’s brow only creases further.

“What do you mean, you don’t get to decide how many you take on?”

Bridget’s lips quirk. “If I had the power to stop people from being sentenced to prison, Franky, I’d—”

“ _Prison_? I thought you said you were a shrink?” All at once, Bridget seems to realise that she’s never actually told Franky where she works. Franky guffaws just a little. “You work in a prison. You’re a prison shrink,” she says, and Bridget nods her head, like she’s surprised that it’s never come up. Franky rakes her gaze over her, suddenly seeing her in a new light. Her lips twitch. “Do you get a uniform?”

“No,” Bridget laughs. “I’m not a screw.”

“Oh, you’re not a _screw_ ,” Franky repeats, on the cusp of laughter, and Bridget rolls her eyes. “Fuck, Gidget. What else don’t I know about you?” It’s a rhetorical question, of course, and Bridget does not bother to answer. Franky likes the idea of figuring her out too much to push it. She openly appraises Bridget. “I never would have imagined you working in a place like that.”

“No?”

“Nuh, you’re a tiny little thing, surrounded by hardened criminals day-in, day-out?”

Bridget scoffs. “I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, I bet,” Franky grins, and Bridget shakes her head. “But that doesn’t dismiss the fact that you’re probably the hottest piece of arse they get to see in there. And you already know what prison’s like, don’tcha? Gate-gay for stay. Don’t tell me no one’s ever tried it on?”

Bridget’s lips purse.

“They haven’t, actually. No one would be brave enough.”

Franky laughs at that.

“Not that I’d give them the chance to, either.”

“No?” she presses, and Bridget shakes her head. Franky leans into the space between them, closing the distance. Her gaze moves between both of Bridget’s eyes and her lips. She wonders, briefly, how her lipstick would taste mixed with the wine that they’re drinking. “What about me?”

Bridget holds her gaze, and then blinks slowly.

“Why don’t you come here and find out?”

Well, then.

Franky scans her face for any hint of a joke, but Bridget simply sits there, patiently waiting for Franky to make a move on her. That simmering burn of arousal in Franky’s lower abdomen becomes a raging wildfire, licking at her heels. She swallows, and closes the distance.

Their first kiss is chaste.

Soft lips, and Bridget’s slow exhale against her cheek.

As is the second, third, the fourth…

Bridget lifts a hand to her cheek, holding her gently in place. Her lips are gentle and warm against Franky’s, and Franky cannot get enough of them. She could do this for hours, she thinks, just kissing Bridget, nothing more. She would not tire. When Bridget’s hand slips into her hair, when she feels the gentle scrape of blunt nails against her scalp, and fingers lightly fisting in her hair, she deepens the kiss. Just the tip of her tongue teases along Bridget’s bottom lip before she’s granted access, and sighs.

Almost immediately, Bridget’s hand disappears. She eases out of the kiss and Franky’s eyes open wide. Before she worries too hard that she’s overstepped, Bridget offers up her glass of wine. Franky stares at it, confused.

“Put this down somewhere before I spill it?” Bridget asks.

She looks flushed, her pupils dilated, and in absolutely no urgency for any of this to stop.

Franky takes her glass with a grin, setting them both down on the coffee table before returning. As soon as she’s back in her seat, Bridget is on her. She cups Franky’s face between both hands, and captures her mouth in a kiss that just about makes Franky’s brain white-out. When her mind has caught back up with her body, Franky pushes the dressing gown that’s covering Bridget’s legs aside, and finds her hips. She hauls her, none-too-gently, out of her seat and into her lap, so that Bridget is straddling her.

Surprised, Bridget lands with a gasp, followed by a raspy laugh that Franky chases away with lips and tongue and nimble fingers digging in around her hips. And, _fuck,_ but she’s been wanting to do this for so long. She grinds Bridget into her until they’re flush together, her knees planted either side of Franky’s hips, warm and close.

Bridget does not let her rush it.

When Franky’s hands creep at the hem of her jumper, Bridget captures them between her own and links their fingers, holds them tight. She sets the pace and Franky lets her, for a time, until she’s going out of her mind with arousal. She draws away from Bridget’s mouth and finds the sweet, soft skin of her neck, instead.

Bridget slowly tilts her head back, breathing heavily, giving Franky all the access she could want until she reaches the collar of the jumper. Without her hands, there’s no getting around it, and Franky nips at Bridget’s throat in retaliation.

“I’m regretting lending you a jumper and not a spaghetti top,” she hisses, making Bridget laugh again.

“Patience, darling, I’m not in any rush.”

Franky blows out a breath and sits back, head hitting the couch. She narrows her eyes at Bridget, lips pursed, but cannot help but rake her gaze over her. A smile tugs at her lips, relentless. As if in peace offering, Bridget releases her hands. Franky wastes no time in finding her thighs and running her hands along them, while Bridget tucks dark hair behind her ear and strokes teasing fingers along Franky’s bare arms.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous,” Franky whispers, watching her own hands as they disappear beneath the oversized hem of the jumper, finding Bridget’s hips. When she lifts her gaze, it’s to find Bridget smirking. “I’ve pictured doing this so many times.”

Bridget hums and ducks her head.

“Me, too.”

“Yeah?” Franky presses, leaning closer still. Her hands slip around to Bridget’s ass, palming her through her undies. “Tell me about it.”

Bridget kisses the grin right off her face.

When Franky next reaches for the hem of her jumper, Bridget does not stop her. Still, Franky is slow to lift it, inch-by-inch over Bridget’s thighs and hips. She gives her plenty of time to stop the slow advance of Franky’s hands against her sides, her ribcage, but no protest comes. Only when Franky is certain that Bridget is comfortable does she take her breasts in both hands, and releases a near-pained sounding groan.

“You’ve not been wearing a bra this entire time?”

“I left it in your bathroom,” Bridget tells her, arching into her touch. Her lips are parted and her cheeks flushed. Franky’s arousal spikes tenfold, and winds her. She captures hardened nipples between her fingers and tweaks just enough to draw a choked noise from Bridget’s throat. “Fuck, Franky…”

“I wanna see you,” Franky whispers, pleading.

“So take this off.”

She does not need to be asked twice.

The jumper disappears over Bridget’s head, mussing her hair. Franky wraps her arms around her, palms against her bare back, keeping her warm. Her fingers follow the curve of Bridget’s spine right down to her ass, and then change course. She traces her hips, her stomach, and then up to Bridget’s small breasts. Franky leans back to watch her own progress, and the expression of growing need on Bridget’s face.

She shivers when Franky presses her face into Bridget’s neck, kissing the skin there.

“Warm enough?”

Bridget manages little more than breathy agreement, and Franky grins.

She kisses her way down Bridget’s neck, across her collarbones. With Bridget in her lap, the height advantage makes it easy for her to crane her head low and kiss along her breasts— the smattering of freckles and moles that Franky wants to map the same way old sailors made constellations out of stars. Realising her intent, Bridget presses onto her knees, as good as offering her body up for Franky’s taking.

And, she takes.

She closes her mouth around one breast and groans when Bridget’s hands sink into her hair, holding her tight in place.

She does not make Bridget work for it. She has waited months to do this, to have her in her lap like this, and Franky’s self-restraint can only stretch so far. Before Bridget leaves her, Franky wants to burn memories into every inch of her body. With this in mind, she moves her mouth to Bridget’s other breast, and pinches her nipple between her teeth.

Bridget’s hips jerk at the sudden pressure, fists tightening around Franky’s hair, until she’s pushing Franky away, away, up to where her mouth is waiting. Bridget kisses her, desperate, and moans against her lips. Franky’s body reacts on autopilot. She wraps her arms around Bridget’s waist and twists into the couch, lowering Bridget’s back to the cushion.

The move brings her directly between Bridget’s legs, where the coarse material of her jeans meets Bridget’s underwear. Noticing this, Franky lowers a little more weight into her thigh and grinds against her until Bridget’s hips fall into the same rhythm. She is breathless when she draws back from Franky’s mouth, and her the blue of her irises is nothing more than a thin ring around dilated pupils.

“Franky,” she says, like _please_ , and Franky grins.

She is far too much of a bastard to give in this soon.

Still, wandering fingers find the hem of Bridget’s undies, snapping the material against her hip.

“Tell me what you like.”

Bridget releases a pained breath. A blush is already creeping down her throat, into the tops of her breasts, painting her sunset pink to match her flushed cheeks. Franky slides her hand down to the very top of Bridget’s thigh, winding her fingers around the muscle there, and squeezing. She rocks her thigh against Bridget until her eyes flutter briefly closed before refocusing.

“Just touch me,” Bridget whispers. “Please, touch me.”

She links her arms behind Franky’s neck and sighs, victorious, _relieved_ , when Franky acquiesces. A warm hand replaces her thigh, and Franky groans low in her throat and swears. Bridget is wet enough for Franky to feel her arousal through her underwear, and she cannot help but further her teasing – but spread her fingers through the gathering moisture and press, _press_ with her heel of her palm against that tight bundle of nerves above Bridget’s entrance.

“Tell me if I do anything you don’t like,” Franky tells her, and slides her fingers past the flimsy material.

She enters Bridget two fingers at a time, and despite her own mounting arousal, she does not rush it. She presses, and twists, and curls her fingers inside of Bridget until she finds the exact places that draw breathy noises from her swollen lips. She finds Bridget’s preferred rhythm – gentle, not too deep, but _fast_ – and fucks her until the hands in her hair tighten near-painfully, and Bridget is forced to close her eyes.

She fucks her until her wrist begins to burn and her fingers cramp, until the breathy noises Bridget is making grow in both volume and number, and Franky drinks her obvious pleasure in as though she’s starving. She does not slow until it’s all too much—

Bridget gasps and contorts beneath her, and Franky takes too much pleasure in building her up, _up_ , only to watch her crash back down again as Bridget reaches a shaking climax.

(She enjoys, _too much_ , being there to hold her as Bridget comes back down from her high.)

Bridget is slow to return to herself. She looks freshly woken – breathing heavily, soft with her flush and her heavy-lidded glazed eyes. She slides her arms slowly back from around Franky’s neck and cups her cheeks, instead, so that she might draw her down into kisses so tender and sensual that Franky all but completely relaxes on top of Bridget’s body.

She retracts her fingers slowly, carefully, and Bridget sighs with the loss.

“Fuck,” she whispers as Franky draws back from the kiss.

She looks perfectly mussed and content against the couch cushion.

Franky’s smile turns that toothy over-confident that she just can’t help, sometimes, and less so with Bridget beneath her, still glowing from post-coital bliss. “Fuck,” she agrees, brushing her nose against Bridget’s and laughing, breathy. “Please tell me when I can do that again.”

Bridget hums a laugh, and kisses her. “Later.”  

When she draws back, it’s to eye Franky’s shirt reproachfully.

“You know, I’m practically naked here, and you’ve not so much as removed your boots.”

Franky arches an eyebrow. “Well, what do you intend to do about it?”

“What do _I_ intend to do about it?”

“Yeah.” Franky nods, scrunching her nose. “Reckon I’ve done enough, don’t you?”

“Oh,” Bridget laughs. “That so?”

“That orgasm speaks for itself.”

Bridget narrows her eyes, but she cannot repress her smirk.

“You’re a cocky shit,” she says, fondly, and Franky nods her head. “Get up, then. I’m too old to be having sex on a couch when there’s a perfectly good bed ten steps away.”

Grinning, Franky rolls off of her, and is entirely unprepared for the sight of an almost-naked Bridget sauntering towards her bedroom area. She tries to stand, but loses momentum and sits back down again, feeling a little light in the head. Ahead of her, over one shoulder, Bridget throws her a _come hither_ look, and Franky’s heartrate spikes. She almost trips over her boots in her haste to get them off.

When she approaches Bridget, it’s with her arms held wide as though to say, _come and get me_.

“I’m all yours, Gidge, where do you want me?”

Bridget taps her chin with a finger, one arm wrapped around her waist. “Don’t think I’m going to go easy on you just because my legs are still a little wobbly.”

Franky grins wide and tongues at the inside of her cheek.

“Do your worst.”

When she’s close enough, Bridget loops fingers through the empty belt straps in her jeans and pulls Franky in, twists her around. “Get comfortable,” she tells her, and encourages her down toward the bed. Franky lands on her clean sheets with a bounce and ushers up towards the pillows. The sight of Bridget crawling up the bed to meet her just about obliterates her mind.

When the ability to form coherent thought returns to her, Franky is already naked.

She doesn’t remember how it happens, exactly.

Bridget lifts her head from her breasts to see her, and Franky pushes a loose strand of blonde hair back behind her ear. She’s so _fucking_ beautiful, she thinks, and then Bridget is sliding two fingers inside of her, and Franky stops thinking altogether. Her head falls back to the pillow with a too-loud, _surprised_ moan.

Her body reacts to Bridget’s touch as though they’re old lovers, as though Bridget has touched her like this countless times in the past, and knows exactly what Franky wants, how she likes to be touched. Franky is giving with her reactions – she is as open and easy to read as a book, sometimes, and there is nothing for her to hide behind when Bridget has her like this, needy and bare. She gives freely; she lets Bridget take.

When Franky reaches climax, it is quick and powerful and _loud_.

She hides her face behind her hands, afterwards, and muffles a groan.

She is vaguely aware of Bridget kissing along the tops of her breasts, her collarbones, the column of her throat. She lowers her hands and welcomes the kiss that Bridget places on her mouth, open and lazy. Gently, she slides the pins out of Bridget’s hair, discarding them with a clatter against the nearest bedside table. As the last one comes loose, Franky plunges fingers into Bridget’s hair and sighs, content.

Bridget is the first to break their languid kissing.

She lifts her head and blows at the strand of hair that curls immediately into her face.

Eyes narrowing, she asks, “Happy?”

Franky stares up at her with a quiet kind of awe. “Very.”

Bridget’s expression softens.

“Good.” She tils her head, studying Franky’s face. “Tired?”

“Not even in the slightest.”

Her smile returns.

_Good_.

Bridget’s next kiss is brief.

She moves from Franky’s mouth immediately to her throat, to the sensitive curve of soft skin that makes the hair at the back of Franky’s neck stand on end when Bridget licks it. “ _Bridget_ ,” she gasps, but Bridget does not linger. From her throat to her chest, Bridget lathes kisses along Franky’s skin as though she has an exact destination in mind, and she does.

Franky realises this as Bridget’s mouth reaches her navel, and whimpers.

When Bridget settles between her legs, it’s all Franky can do to push herself up on shaky elbows and watch her. Bridget presses kisses right down to the short curls between Franky’s legs, and then into the soft of her thigh, where she bites and nips and makes the dull ache of Franky’s arousal twist into a desperate throb.

When Bridget _kisses_ her, right there where Franky’s arousal burns like a stoked fire, Franky falls back to the bed with a gasp.

She surrenders herself completely.

Bridget is so gentle with her, even when Franky sinks fingers into her loose hair and _pulls_. She is over-sensitive and eager, and Bridget does not budge an inch on her intended course. She teases Franky with her tongue and lips, at one point shifting her attention to Franky’s entrance so that she might gather the evidence of her arousal there, and take it back with her when draws Franky’s clit into her mouth and _pulls_.

Franky’s back arches off the bed.

A weak noise gets caught somewhere in her throat, her breath catches.

The sensation is both too much and not enough, a perfect paradox that makes the skin at the heels of her feet tingle and burn with an already fast-approaching orgasm. All it takes, in the end, is one glance down at Bridget between her thighs. When those bright blue eyes look up at her, Franky feels hot, white pleasure sharpen between her legs, and climaxes.

 

Franky returns to herself with bleary vision.

She blinks to clear it, and looks down.

Between her legs, still, Bridget is watching her. She has arms looped comfortably around Franky’s thighs, and rests her chin against one of them, her gaze adoring. She smiles when Franky lifts her head to better see her, and Franky does her best to fix her hair with gentle finger-combing. Like a cat, Bridget closes her eyes and hums, craning her neck toward the sensation.

When she opens her eyes again, it’s to stretch and crawl back up Franky’s body.

Franky meets her with a kiss.

(She tastes herself against Bridget’s lips and her desire reacts like stoked embers. Franky whimpers, exhausted.)

“Fuck me,” she says as they part, and sinks heavily into the bed.

Her body is humming and alive, and utterly sated – for now. She wraps her arms around Bridget’s back and strokes fingers along her spine, and thinks, a part of her could get used to this, if she let it. Bridget smiles back at her, amused. She looks far more alert, although Franky is already formulating plans on how to fix that.

“You’re _insatiable_.”

“You’re fuckin’ incredible,” Franky breathes, struck blunt and honest in her own fatigue. She lifts her head. “Stay?”

Above her, Bridget blinks, surprised.

“The night?”

Franky wets her lips. “Forever?”  

Bridget laughs brightly, but there’s a twinkle in her eye that fills Franky with a dangerous amount of hope.

“Let’s just take this one day at a time, yeah?” Bridget asks, and Franky nods her head.

She can live with that.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, here we have it (and it's only three weeks late)! 
> 
> I can't thank you guys enough for the continuous support you've given this little piece - I appreciate your feedback so, so much. It's really kept me going when the writing of this chapter became a pain in the ass. 
> 
> I can't say for sure what I'll bring out next, but I am already throwing bits and pieces together for more fic of these two, so we'll see what comes of it I guess. :)


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